Silver Threads and Golden Needles
by Cressida Isolde
Summary: Adjusting to life two hundred years later isn't easy. One shots following the Sole Survivor as she makes her way through discovery, pain, and memories. You can't stay the same person in the Commonwealth Wasteland.
1. Silver Threads and Golden Needles

I haven't written for literally ever. Hopefully this will get me out of the not-writing habit.

Don't expect much okay I'm rusty as all heck.

* * *

Ella leaned forward, peering into the department store jewellery counter's cracked mirror. The early morning light slanting in through the window highlighted every speck of dust in its pale golden beam.

"I don't know why you feel the need to keep doing that," said Danse. His power armour whirred as he shifted position behind her.

"Of course you don't," she replied, leaning closer to the mirror. She drew the eyeliner brush across her eyelid, carefully forming a sharp point at the corner of her eye. "They used to call it 'war paint', back in the day," she said, inspecting her handiwork. "And they meant that in a slightly condescending way, but what's the point of bringing up old wounds now, right?"

"I just don't see why you bother," he said. "You look fine without it."

She laughed. "Fine," she said. "Yes. The point _is_ , if you see a woman in perfect eyeliner carrying a huge fucking gun, the correct emotion to feel is terror." She glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. "It should be intimidating that someone has the free time to put into looking good while also being able to shoot you through the eye at three hundred paces."

"At three hundred paces, who's going to see your eyeliner?" he asked.

"Anyone looking back through a scope, I guess," she said, switching to her other eye.

"There's a reassuring thought," he muttered. He took a step closer to the window and looked down at the street below.

"You still shave, don't you?" she asked. "So it's not like the apocalypse is an excuse to let your appearance go to hell."

"Not every day," he said, defensively. "It's not mission critical if you're in the field. Besides, it's regulations."

"I'm not entirely sure how the facial hair hierarchy works in this organisation." She sat back from the mirror with a frown. Slightly uneven. She leaned back in, closer, to even it out. "Seems linked to seniority. I guess it isn't something I have to worry about, anyway."

"It's not that complicated," he said disapprovingly.

She drew one final line, narrowed her eyes critically as she compared them in the mirror, and turned around to face him. "The eyeliner's psychological warfare," she said. "Well. Barely, I guess. It makes me feel better. And please don't start getting into that 'frailty, thy name is,' bullshit, because I could do without it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Danse.

She smiled. "Well, how do I look?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you terrified yet?"

"Terrified isn't _exactly_ how I'd describe it," he said.

Her smile widened. "How would you describe it?"

"I-" he said, taking a step back. "Uh."

"Exactly the reaction I was looking for," she said. "You've been a great help." She took one last glance back at the mirror and straightened up.

"If you're sure you're ready to go?" said Danse. "You don't want to put on lipstick or something?"

"What, do you think I'm crazy?" she asked. "I'd be reapplying it all day. That's far too much work. This is all about minimum effort, maximum impact."

"I'm - familiar with the concept," he said. "And I'm starting to see why they called it 'war paint'."

"Some of us took it more seriously than others," she said. "Though, in those days, it was more about boardrooms than battlefields."

She picked her way carefully past fallen mannequins and shattered display cases; torn clothes and empty bullet casings, and let her hand rest lightly on the wooden rail as she walked down the stairs. Paladin Danse's footsteps behind her were heavy and reassuring.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs. "I used to come here a lot," she said. "In my lunch breaks. When I was little I'd imagine coming here at night when no one else was around, and I could just take whatever I want." She rubbed her finger along a counter, scooping up a line of dust. "I can't say it's everything I ever dreamed of."

"This must be strange for you," said Danse. "Do you - recognise everything?"

She led them outside. "I didn't at first," she said. "Couldn't tell one street from another. So much is gone." She paused for a moment as gunfire rattled in the distance. "And then I walked right into Boston Common. I could just imagine being there on a sunny day, hundreds of people around, kids playing in the water. And everything just sort of fell into place. I could line up my memory with-" she waved a hand. "All this." She sighed. "And there was a supermutant in the pond wearing a boat. Because that's apparently just what life is like now."

"It doesn't have to be," said Danse. "That's why we're here."

She gave him a half-smile. "I used to work just around the corner from here," she said.

Danse was watching her. "Do you want to go see?"

She took a moment before answering. "No," she said. "Best case scenario, they're all dead, right?" She looked up at the old building. "I - hope they are, at least."

She turned to Danse. "Things weren't _good_ before the war," she said. "Though I didn't know how bad they'd got until reading some of the old terminals out here. The Sanctuary Hills subdivision was very insulated. It's easy to ignore how bad things are if you're on your six months maternity leave and the furthest you ever go from home is the Concord grocery store. Food riots are easy to ignore when they're a thirty second segment on the six o'clock news. But still, I never expected - this." She stared down the bleak street ahead. Rubble was piled high on both sides, the remnants of shattered buildings reaching into the sky.

"Why is it still _like_ this?" she asked incredulously. "If it's been two hundred years. How can things still be this bad? When you think of what America accomplished between 1776 and 1976 - I just don't understand. They're still subsistence farming. Still living in two hundred year old houses that are falling apart. Diamond City's a shanty town. I just - would have expected more."

"It's not like this everywhere," said Danse, watching the skyline warily. "Things are better out west."

She stopped, lowering her rifle. "Really?"

"Yeah. California, Nevada are doing okay. The Capital Wasteland's worse than here, though," he said.

"DC?" she asked. "Well - yeah, I bet. Christ."

"Do you need to take a minute?" asked Danse, turning to look at her. "We need to stay focused out here."

She sighed. "No, I'm pretty much done whining for now," she said, "Let's go."


	2. I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know

Warning: spoilers for Nick Valentine's companion quest/backstory (sorry niule).

* * *

"Uh, no," said Ella. "I don't want to get involved in your drug deal ambush."

"It's foolproof," said Cooke, leaning over the bar conspiratorially. The dim light from the lantern flickered, sending the shadows of the bottles on the wall behind him dancing.

She glanced behind her. "Nicky, you ever hear of a foolproof ambush of a drug deal?"

"We usually referred to those as 'drug deals gone bad'," he said. "Right before we called the coroner in with the body bags."

Cooke pushed himself back off the bar irritably. "You don't want in, that's fine," he said. "Your loss."

"Why would you think I want to be involved in this?" Ella snapped, incredulous. "I came in here because Paul was talking about solving his marital problems by bringing a gun in here. Now if you're still okay to call things off with Darcy I'm going to go."

He folded his arms. "Yeah," he said. "Whatever. See you round."

She turned and left, shoving the door open a little harder than was necessary. Nick followed, taking a last glance back at Cooke before letting the door close behind them.

"How in the hell did that happen?" asked Ella, as they made their way back down through the Upper Stands. "I genuinely don't know how we got to that point. Do I look like someone you'd just casually invite along to an ambush?"

"There's something about you makes people pay attention," said Nick Valentine. "Maybe it gets you the wrong kind of attention too."

She grinned. "You knew something was special about me the day I walked into your office, right?"

"Maybe the day you walked into my cell in that vault," he said. "But I see you've read this one before."

"In all seriousness, though," she said. "I think it's the slowly-fading aura of good nutrition and reasonably good health that we all had back in 2077. It won't last. I'll be sickly and ignorable in a month or two, and then we can all go about our business."

"I'm not buying this hard-nosed broad act you've got going on," he said.

"That's a pity," said Ella. "Because I am completely buying your hard-boiled private detective act. Marlowe, right? You're too sweet for Sam Spade."

"Don't get called 'sweet' a lot," he said. "And I can't say I had any literary influences in mind when I first set myself up in Diamond City."

The stadium floodlights sent a sudden wash of stark white light over the marketplace as the sun dipped below the shattered horizon.

"I'm just happy to have someone else out here that knows what I'm talking about," she said. "So what's this noodle joint like?"

He glanced at her sideways. "Wouldn't really know."

"Well - what have you heard?" she asked.

"That it's the only noodle bar in town."

She raised an eyebrow. "Consider my expectations lowered." She took a seat at the counter and looked down at the noodle cup she was given dubiously.

Nick sat down on the stool next to her, shaking his head at the robot chef.

"I wonder if we ever met," she said, poking her chopsticks into the bowl. "Wouldn't mind seeing a familiar face. Well, maybe not a familiar face maybe, but you know what I mean."

"I think I'd remember," said Nick. "But just in case - you never worked as a defense attorney, did you?"

She smiled. "Strictly commercial," she said. "Contract law, mostly. I couldn't give an impassioned closing argument to save my life, but I can draft you up the most airtight and least interesting forty-page agreement you've ever seen."

"That's a tempting offer," said Nick. "I'll have to take you up on that sometime."

"Yeah, I sure know how to show a man a good time," she said, giving him a self-deprecating grin.

"I knew you people wrote those things to be deathly boring on purpose," he said.

"It's not on purpose," she said, tilting her head. "Just a side-effect of being thorough. It's not like we do it for fun. Mostly."

"Mostly," he repeated.

She winced. "I have to admit a certain sense of pride in crafting a well-phrased subclause."

He shook his head. "There's no hope for people like you."

"I used to hear that a lot," she said. "What kind of policing did you do, anyway? Work any cases I'd have heard of?"

"Might have done," he said. "Worked organised crime the last few years before the war."

"Like that Eddie Winter stuff?" she asked, impressed. "He was vicious. Didn't he have some guy's girlfriend killed?"

Nick was silent a little too long before he spoke. "Yeah," he said, tersely.

She felt her heart lurch. "N-no," she said. "Nicky, no."

"What are the odds, huh?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," she continued. "It was just the first thing I thought of because it was just so horrible at the time-"

"That," he said. "Is the effect he was going for." He looked down at the metal skeleton of his hand, flexing it slowly. "Look, don't worry about it. It didn't happen to me anyway. Not really. Just - some other guy with the same name as me."

"You - don't think of yourself as the same person?" she asked.

He cocked his head to look up at her. "Not really. Not any more. Now he's more like - someone I used to know. Lot of stuff happened between then and now."

"So did you wake up," she asked. "With your last memory being getting your brain scanned? Or was there more?"

"It's the last really clear memory I had," he said. "But - I had this feeling there was something missing. Something had been - removed. Deleted. And that was all I had to go on." He tapped his fingers against the table.

"I guess," she began hesitantly. "You were the same person for that one moment, when you - the other Nick - got the scan. And then he left, and did other things, and then a couple hundred years later you go through an whole completely different experience in a completely different place and time. You've grown apart. Is that - right?"

"That's some of it, I think. Not all of it." He looked down. "Hell. Times like these I wish I could still smoke."

She frowned. "Do you think of yourself as human?" she asked. "I mean - I do."

He shook his head, still looking down at the counter. "Don't see how I can," he said. "You know, they don't like to say it, but what's on the outside makes a big difference to the way people treat you." He paused to look back up at her, golden irises glowing. "But maybe you know all about that already."

She shrugged a shoulder. "We're just relics of a bygone era," she said. "Do you know, here to Concord used to be a thirty minute drive? Now it takes the better part of a day."

"The past is a foreign country," said Nick.

"Ooh," she said. "That's better than the 'stranger in a strange land' one I was going to use."

"You got to be pretty quick off the mark to beat old Nick Valentine," he said dryly.

"Looks like it," she agreed. "Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Nick grimaced. "Should have seen that one coming. I'll be ready next time."

She laughed.


	3. Gonna Find Me a Bluebird

Spoilers for Dangerous Minds, I guess.

* * *

The memory pod hissed open. Ella's hands were trembling. Doctor Amari was leaning over her, murmuring something, but Ella couldn't hear the words. The doctor took hold of Ella's chin, frowning, and tilted her head up so she could look into her eyes.

"...hear me?" The doctor's words suddenly crystallized, as if coming into focus.

"Y-yes," said Ella.

Doctor Amari took her arm in one hand, pressing two fingers into the hollow of Ella's wrist. "Too fast," she said. "Take deep breaths." She paused. "I'm - sorry you had to go through all of that. Again."

"Where's Nick?" Ella asked.

"He's upstairs," said Amari. "I brought him out earlier. He's fine," she added. "I'm more worried about you. That was not a - normal thing to go through. Headache? Dry mouth?"

Ella nodded absently.

Amari looked into her eyes for a moment more, then got up and came back with a syringe. "This should make you feel better," she said, offering the needle.

Ella leaned away from it, shaking her head.

"Alright," said Amari. She took the syringe away, and came back with a can of water. Ella took it, and let it sit in her lap.

"I knew this was a bad idea," Amari muttered. "I'm going to get Valentine."

"N-no," said Ella. "It's fine." But the doctor had already gone. The room was spinning. She leaned back in the leather seat and closed her eyes.

"Hey, kiddo."

She opened her eyes to see Nick leaning over her.

"Did a number on you, huh? Understandable. You remember your name?"

She blinked. "Ella. Graham. And no, I can't remember what year this is, twenty-two something? Do we even have a president?"

"She's fine," Nick said to the doctor. "Give us a minute, would you?"

Amari took a last worried look and backed out of the room.

"You okay?" Nick asked, once she'd gone. "Really?"

"Did you - get all of that too?" asked Ella. "Did you see it?"

"Not the same way you did, I think," he said. "I think the memories might still be in here - I could go looking for them, if I wanted, but - I'm not sure I should."

"I was looking at my face," said Ella quietly. "Screaming. As I banged on the door. But I couldn't get out."

"Oh, Ella," he said, putting his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry."

"I tried to do something," she said. "I tried to change it. As if it could actually make a difference." She'd forgotten the way Nate reached out after Shaun, the way he recoiled after being shot.

"Is that water?" He plucked the can from her fingers. "I think what you need is a stiff drink." He took her arm as she climbed out of the chair.

"Third Rail alright with you?" he asked. "We could try the Rexford, but it's gone downhill in the past few years. And in a place like Goodneighbor, that means something."

"Sure," she said. "Not feeling real picky."

Ella couldn't stop trying to superimpose the memories in her head onto the present-day landscape. She couldn't remember if she'd ever been to the subway station that was now the Third Rail. Had she ever been on an elementary school trip to the Old State House?

"She alright?" Ham jerked his head towards her as they made their way inside.

"Rough day," said Nick. "Very rough day."

Ham shrugged. "We all have those. Head on down."

A woman was crooning a torch song on a tiny fenced-off stage next to the bar. Nick pointed her towards a dark corner table. She stared at the peeling cracks on the formica surface until he came back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

She raised her eyebrow at the second glass.

"Never polite to let a lady drink alone," said Nick. He poured a couple of fingers into his glass and then almost doubled the measurement for hers. "I'm not going to ask if you're holding up okay," he said, sitting down. "Because I think I know what the answer to that is already."

She picked up the glass, let out a long breath, and gulped down half of it. "Christ," she said. "You better not let me drink this whole bottle."

"I'll make sure you don't get into any trouble," he said.

She raised the glass to her lips again and sipped it, slower this time. It burned down her throat as she swallowed. "You knew that kid Kellogg had was Shaun, didn't you?" she asked, quietly. "In Diamond City."

"Soon as I saw you," he said. "He's got your nose. Your hair."

The breath caught in her throat, and she lowered the glass to the table. "His hair will darken up when he gets a bit older," she said huskily. "You know, I didn't - want to believe you when you first told me about him. I just want- wanted my baby back." She looked down at her hands on the table. "I have this - empty space in my arms where I should be holding him. I wake up at night, sometimes, because I think I hear him crying down the hall. He was only six months old." She looked up at Nick. "He'd just discovered his feet. He'd spend hours playing with them in the last couple of weeks before-" she broke off abruptly, wrapping her hands around the glass. "I'd been picking up things I thought he'd like. Toys. Rattles. Stupid."

"It's not stupid," said Nick, gently. "You're trying to look after your son."

"He's - what, ten years old?" She took another drink. "It's been so long. I wonder what his life has been like. Who fed him. Who changed his nappies. Who tucked him in at night. Did anyone read him stories?" She tried to picture Shaun as a baby, lying in his crib, laughing as he reached up towards his spinning mobile.

"There's still a kid out there that needs his mother," said Nick, refilling her glass. "And we're going to find him."

"He won't know who I am," she murmured. "He's got a whole new life. What if he doesn't want-"

"He will." Nick took her hand. "It might not be easy, but you can make it work."

She looked at him for a moment, blankly. "Are you okay?" she asked, finally. "I haven't even asked you how you're doing yet, sorry. After having a piece of someone else's brain in your brain."

He laughed, sitting back. "Yeah," he said. "Takes more than some experimental brain surgery to bother me."

"You're a trooper, Nicky," she said. "But - seriously - thank you. For being there. I couldn't have done it without you."

"It's nothing," he said.

"It's not really nothing."

"Close enough to it," he said. "How are you feeling about Kellogg?"

"I don't feel anything about Kellogg," she said, wearily, shaking her head. "I never did. This wasn't about him. I didn't even want to kill him. I just wanted Shaun back. But I don't think he even really knew how to get to him." She tossed back the rest of her glass. "So now we're left with clues. Doctor Virgil and the Glowing Sea."

"The Glowing Sea's no place for a lady on her own," said Nick.

"It's a joke, right?" she asked. "This is already a joke, so why not make it a comedy of divine proportions?" She rolled her eyes. "If I'm Dante, does that make you my Beatrice? Because that would complicate our relationship to no end."

"Only if we'd met a couple of times before the war," he said. "And I'm starting to regret that we never did."

"Only starting?" she said. "I'm offended."

"You're sharp as a tack."

"This is good," she said, nodding. "I'm a lot more comfortable with you telling me how smart I am than with me telling you how it feels to lose a child."

"He's not lost," said Nick. "We're getting him back."  
"How it feels to lose a childhood, then," she said. "Ten years without even knowing it had passed. Ten years he could have been with me but wasn't." She put her glass back down on the table. "I know there's no point thinking like this. I can't somehow get it all back. And I'm probably luckier than most people around in October '77."

"There are a lot of different types of luck," he said. "Not sure what to call yours."

"You're good at this." She sat back and regarded him critically. "Dealt with a lot of distraught women in your time?"

"My fair share," he said. "I'd say you're handling it better than most."

"It's always a competition, somehow. I never wanted it to be." She sighed. "Maybe it's time we left. I don't know how much sense I'm making right now."

"Your call," said Nick. "Hotel Rexford?"  
"Either that or a mattress on the ground outside," she said. "Guess this one's your call."

"The Rexford it is," he said, pushing back his chair as he stood up.

She followed him back up the stairs.


	4. Chained to a Memory

Credit to Niule for writing me a better story description!

* * *

"Take a seat," Piper said, rummaging through a cupboard. "I'm glad you've agreed to do this interview. I think it could help both of us out."

Ella sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. Piper's house was small but clean, crammed full of writing materials and scribbled notes on loose paper.

"Can I get you anything?" Piper asked. "Nuka-Cola?" She turned around with two bottles.

"No thanks," said Ella. "The way they set off my geiger counter kind of bothers me lately."

"Oh." Piper looked at the bottles dubiously, then put them both back in the cupboard. "Okay." She sat down next to Ella on the couch, pen and paper ready. "So," she began. "What would you say has been the biggest change, between life now and life then?"

Ella laughed in disbelief. "Really?" she said. "That's where you want to start? I just - it's so different it's hard to narrow it down."

"Most people out here have no idea what life used to be like," said Piper. "You've heard Moe from Swatters talking about baseball. People believe him."

"Did you believe him?" Ella asked.

"He's always been," Piper paused. "Prone to exaggeration. So, not really. But, equally, we don't have a lot of evidence to definitively say he's wrong."

"Why is that?" she asked. "There are ghouls around who were alive before the war."

"Not so many in Diamond City," said Piper, with a wry grin. "And most of the ones I've met don't seem too inclined to talk about it. Either they've moved on, or two hundred years does a number on your memory." She lit a cigarette, then offered the pack.

Ella leaned forward to take one. "I gave up smoking when I was trying to get pregnant," she said, holding it out for Piper to light. "This seems like as good a time as any to pick it back up again."

She watched the tobacco glow and curl as Piper held the lighter under it.

"So, the biggest change," said Ella. I'd - never killed anyone before." Her voice wavered on the last word. "Here it seems like - something people just do without thinking. Like it's not a big deal. Like - life isn't important." She rolled the cigarette between her fingers, eyes fixed on the burning end. "I kept track, for a while. Not on purpose, just - it's like there was some counter in my head, and every time someone died it'd just - tick over. You have now killed fifty-two people. But-" she raised the cigarette to her lips. "It just stopped counting, around eighty or so. Maybe it figured out that it wasn't really a notable event any more." She took a drag on the cigarette, and immediately choked. "What is this?" she asked, holding out the cigarette. "It's terrible. Do they all taste like this?"

Piper plucked it from her hand to test it for herself. "Uh - yes?" she said. "This is pretty standard." She offered it back, but Ella shook her head.

"Cigarettes are not meant to taste like this," she said. "Are these all pre-war?"

"As far as I know," said Piper, bemused. "What are they meant to taste like?"

"Less - harsh. Not so musty. Sweeter - no, that's not exactly the right word. But not like that."

Piper looked at Ella's cigarette dubiously, then stubbed it out.

"The worst thing is when you see someone through your scope, and you think, oh, that looks like a raider, so you shoot him," Ella said. "But, you know, maybe it's just some scavenger who found some pieces of raider armour and put them on because they offered more protection than whatever flannel shirt he was wearing already. You don't know, until they start shooting at you."

"If there's a group of them they're probably raiders," offered Piper.

"How would you know until you get close enough for them to see you?" asked Ella. "They could be anyone. And if you start shooting at them first, all they know is that they're getting shot at and need to protect themselves." She shrugged. "I don't see how the Commonwealth supports such a large raider population, so maybe we are just shooting at innocent people. Still, it seems that 'shoot on sight' is a legitimate survival strategy out here, so what does it even matter?"

Piper looked up from her notebook. "That's, uh, grim," she said. "You really think that?"

Ella met her gaze. "No," she said. "Not really. I'm at least mostly sure people are raiders before I start shooting them. Decorative corpses and skulls everywhere are a clue. But you can't really know for sure before they start shooting at you. It's about killing versus dying. Neither of which I'm a huge fan of." She looked down at her hand. The cigarette had felt so familiar between her fingers. Had it really tasted so bad?

"You know, Nate was in the army," Ella continued. "Alaska, in the early '70s. They made this big thing out of him being this huge war hero, but he was never really that interested in all the attention." She had a sudden flash of memory of him wrapping his arms around her waist as she peered into the mirror in her home.

"Nate?" asked Piper. "Was he - your husband?"

After a moment, Ella nodded. "He probably would have done a lot better out here, to be honest. Sometimes I think that maybe he was the one who was meant to end up out here and I was the one who was meant to be holding the baby when the Institute came."

"Jesus, Ella, you can't think like that," said Piper.

"Are you trying to get the story or are you trying to be my friend?" asked Ella, raising an eyebrow.

"Both," said Piper. "I don't want this to be an incredibly traumatising experience for you."

"You're too nice to be a journalist," said Ella. "You wouldn't have lasted a day in the old Boston news offices. You don't have that killer instinct to really go for the throat when you sense weakness. Tug the heartstrings for your audience."

Piper put down her notebook. "You don't think I'm cut out to be a journalist?" she asked softly.

"I think you're _exactly_ the type of person who should be a journalist," said Ella. "You're honest. You care about the truth. You're not working to an editor who needs the punchiest soundbite by 6PM regardless of accuracy. You don't have to think about advertising dollars or commercial interests or other contributors to your bottom line which means you might go a little easier on them if they mess up, or push their competitors a little harder, or even keep certain things out of the news entirely. Your particular brand of journalism is probably the purest form I've ever encountered."

" _That's_ what things were like back then?" Piper asked.

"Well, it was almost unthinkable that the papers would print something the government wasn't happy with," said Ella. "What if I put it that way?"

"Wow," said Piper. "I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse."

"Yeah, you're not exactly following in the footsteps of giants," she said. "Did you learn about journalism from books? You obviously didn't go to journalism school."

"Why do you say that?" asked Piper.

"Uh, because I didn't think any of them were still open?" said Ella, half smiling. "Maybe one of the smaller ones? Emerson perhaps?"

"Oh," said Piper. "I thought maybe you meant I obviously didn't go to journalism school the way Travis obviously didn't go to... radio school."

"Oh my god," said Ella, leaning her head back against the couch. "I actually started listening to the classical music station because he was so uncomfortable it made me uncomfortable to listen to him."

"He's a nice kid," said Piper.

"I bet he is," said Ella. "But he's not cut out for it."

"Hey, stop trying to change the subject," said Piper playfully. "I'm trying to interview you here."

"If you insist," said Ella. "What else did you want to know?"

"You were talking about your husband," said Piper.

Ella sighed. "That's right," she said. "Nate never really talked about what it was like in Alaska, except once. There was one time, after we'd had a few too many drinks, maybe - and he told me the army dosed them all up with psycho and just - turned them loose on the enemy. He said it was like they weren't human, for an hour or two, and then they all came back to the base covered in other people's blood and celebrated like it was some great victory. Hell, maybe it was." She paused. "But he came back from Alaska different. He wasn't the same person as the one I'd said goodbye to, not exactly. And - I am getting to the point on this - lately I've been wondering what he would think if he met me now. How I would have changed in his eyes. If he'd even recognise this person he taught to shoot out the back of our house with an old .22 rifle."

"I think he'd be proud of you," said Piper.

"Yeah?" asked Ella. "I don't. But, uh, I'm going to head off." She stood. "Good luck turning that into an article." She let the door swing closed behind her.


	5. Just When I Needed You

"I can't do it, Preston," Ella said quietly.

"But with your help we can rebuild the Minutemen," he said. "We can bring hope back to the Commonwealth."

The sun beat down on the two of them, standing in the middle of the road in Sanctuary Hills.

She closed her eyes to shut out the enthusiasm in his face. "I don't know the first thing about leading a militia. Training them. Recruitment; logistics."

"I can help you," said Preston. "And the others will too. You're exactly the type of person we need to lead us."

"I cannot stress enough that I am not the right person," she said. "I appreciate your confidence, but I can't do this."

"Tell me why not," he said.

She sighed. "Because - the job is impossible. It's too big. I can't organise these people's lives for them. I can't build them a home and the furniture to go in it. I can't plant crops for them and tell them how to farm. I can't take a tiny settlement that someone inexplicably built in between a raider encampment and a den of super mutants and promise them it's going to be safe and go help them out every time they get attacked."

"So you're saying you won't help," said Preston.

"I'm saying I _can't_ help," she said. "You're asking me to take responsibility for fixing everything that is wrong in the Commonwealth. I can't do that. I don't know if anyone can."

"Well, that's your decision," he said. "But I can't say I'm not disappointed."

"Preston," she said. "I am here to find my son and hopefully try to build some kind of life with him. I am not here to attempt to rebuild the entirety of Boston by myself."

"I'm not asking you to do it by yourself. I'm here with you. And others will join."

"Why would they?" she asked, exasperated. "When we're the ones who come along to solve every problem they have? We don't even make enough money to pay for our bullets." She lowered her voice. "This is a noble goal, Preston, but it's not sustainable."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you cared more about the Commonwealth than this."

"If you want a leader so bad, you be it," she said, raising her voice. "Do you know why the original minutemen, in the Revolutionary War, were successful?" she asked. "Because they were just part of a larger militia. And everyone had to serve in the militia, not just whoever felt like volunteering. And the provincial government had some oversight, and could identify weaknesses and give instructions to deal with them. What you're doing is starting at the end and trying to work backwards, and it's not going to work." She took a step towards him. "How can you just pick something from the past to emulate without knowing your history?" she asked. "You don't even know what you're trying to be. I'm surprised the Minutemen ever worked at all." She turned and left, leaving him standing in the street.

Nick caught up with her halfway down the road.

"Well, I figured out what I'm doing after this is all over," she said, bitterly, as he fell into step beside her. "I'm going to start a railroad company and change my name to Dagny fucking Taggart."

"You can only carry the weight of the world on your shoulders for so long," he said dryly.

She smiled, despite herself. "When I read that book I was so angry at how selfish the whole philosophy was. All these people with unbelievable wealth and money choosing to take their ball and go home. And now I'm, somehow, one of these privileged few, and-" her shoulders slumped. "And I just can't give everyone what they're asking of me. Christ, I'd happily pay as many taxes as necessary to a government to fix the roads and build facilities, fund some security measures, welfare programmes, maybe even reopen the library - but I can't do everything myself." She looked at Nick, almost pleading.

"As long as this doesn't turn into a seventy page monologue, that's fine with me," he said. "But - I get it. You're one person fighting against a whole world. There's only so much you can do."

She slowed down. "You're disappointed too," she said, half-accusing.

He shook his head. "You're only human."

She came to a stop. "I have - something to do," she said.

She caught sight of Danse at the other end of the street, and raised her arm to wave him over.

Nick followed her line of vision and turned back to her with a raised eyebrow. "I'll be on my way, then," he said.

"I need to teach you our hand signal codes," said Danse, when he got close enough.

"So I don't have to wave like a peasant?" she asked, smiling.

"I would have used the word 'civilian'," he said. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah," she said. "Haylen asked me to pick up a haptic drive from a water processing plant."

"Sounds good," he said. "Where are we going?"

"Straight south, it looks like," she said. "Come on."

She led them out of Sanctuary, ignoring the feeling of eyes watching her leave.

The sun was high in the sky as they followed the road south. Ella tugged the zip of her vault suit lower in the midday heat. Her pip-boy didn't have any temperature readings, but the heat was almost unbearable by the time they were halfway to the reservoir.

"Do you know what you're looking for?" asked Danse.

"Not exactly," she admitted. "Haylen described it, but I'm still trying to work out what 'haptic' means. Sounds Greek? I'm better on Latin. Hard to graduate from Harvard Law without picking up at least a couple of basic Latin words, you know? Our entire diplomas are written in Latin, for Christ's sake."

"Are you still upset at Rhys about that?" asked Danse.

"Not - really," she said. "I just don't like people taking one look at me and assuming I'm an idiot."

"I doubt it's because of the way you look," he said. "He's been through a lot lately. They both have. We lost a lot of people from the recon team over the past few months. Rhys was badly injured in the fighting. It takes its toll on people."

"I'm - sorry," she said. "That must have been difficult. For all of you."

"We knew this mission was going to be dangerous," he said. "But we weren't expecting things to go this badly," he said. "It - affects different people in different ways."

"You remind me of someone," she said, starting to walk again. "From before the war. I can't quite figure out who. It's bugging me."

"Does that happen often?" he asked. "It makes sense you'd look for familiar things after all that's happened to you."

"Well - no, it doesn't happen often," she said. "And ease off on the psychoanalysis, would you, Sigmund?"

A low rumble made her stop in her tracks. She'd heard the sound before. She couldn't place it, exactly, but it made the hair rise on the back of her neck.

"Don't move," said Danse, quietly. "Nine o-clock."

There was a deathclaw to her left, crouched close to the ground. It quirked its head, watching them. "I see it," she breathed. "What do we do?"

"Get behind me," he said, reaching for his laser rifle.

She slid her foot back through the dust, feeling behind her, but the movement caught it's attention. It made a bounding leap towards her, covering the ground between them before she could even reach for her weapon. She saw its arm swing back, and suddenly her feet weren't touching the ground. Its claws were wrapped tightly around her throat, the tips digging into her shoulders and neck. She tried desperately to pry its claws away, dimly aware of a distant sound of laser fire, but couldn't shift them. She stopped struggling as it raised her to its face, its nostrils twitching as it sniffed her. Its tiny yellow eyes peered at her from under its bony brow ridge. There was a shred of what looked like human skin hanging from the end of one of its horns.

It opened its mouth and roared at her, a deafening shriek that wiped every conscious thought from her mind. She could smell rotting flesh as its hot breath blew over her, her eyes fixed on its mouthful of yellow teeth.

Grey spots were starting to blot out her vision when she felt a sharp, juddering shake. The deathclaw turned its head away from her and roared again, then tossed her away like she was weightless. She felt its claws rake across her face as it let her go. She hit the ground gracelessly, still struggling to reach for her gun as everything went dark.

She woke up after a few seconds and pushed herself up on her hands. Her vision was blurry, blood streaming into her right eye.

Danse was crouched by her side, out of his power armour. "Easy," he said. "You all right?"

"It's dead?" she asked wearily.

"It's dead," he confirmed, helping her sit up against a nearby tree. "That wound needs attention."

She lifted her hand to her face and brought her fingers away slick with blood. She leaned away slightly as Danse raised a stimpak.

"Does it really need it?" she asked. "How bad is it?"

"It needs a stimpak, or stitches, immediately," he said. "What's wrong?"

"I just - don't like them," she said uncomfortably.

"What?" he asked. "The needle?" He looked down at the stimpak in his hand.

"I know it's stupid, okay?" she said "I know. Like we didn't have enough things back in 2077 to be afraid of, so we just made up phobias of things that weren't dangerous."

"I've seen you use stimpaks on yourself," he said.

"It's different when I'm doing it," she said. "A little. Can I do this one?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," he said. "If you can't see what you're doing, the risk of the stimpak hitting a vein is higher, which can overload your heart. I'd also be concerned about your risk of putting the needle right through your cheek."

"Oh my God," she breathed, letting her head fall back against the tree behind her weakly. "Okay. Okay. Damn it. Just do it." She squeezed her eyes closed.

He ran his thumb along her cheekbone to pinpoint the appropriate injection site, then used his hand to hold her head still.

Her hands clenched into fists as she felt the first prick of the needle, her nails digging into the palms of her hands. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

"Keep breathing," he reminded.

She swore under her breath.

"And - there." He sat back.

She lifted her hand to her face to wipe away the drying blood. Her skin felt smooth under her fingers. "How's it look?"

"Healed well," he said. "Your eyeliner's ruined though."

She choked out a laugh. "Thanks for letting me know," she said. "I'll fix it before we get back to the police station." She got to her feet unsteadily, leaning against the tree. "Can we - can we just go back a minute or two?"

Danse was climbing back into his power armour. "What is it?"

"Did you _shoulder charge_ that deathclaw?" she asked. "I couldn't see, but that's what it sort of felt like."

He frowned. "It - wasn't letting you go."

"Jesus Christ," she said. "All right, well, consider me impressed. You could have played for the Patriots."

"I didn't do it to impress you," he said, turning to face her. "I did it to save your life. And I don't want to belabour the point, but this is exactly why you need to wear power armour."

"Do I look like I'm made of fusion cores?" she asked weakly.

"Is that why you don't wear it?" he asked, almost incredulous. "I can pick some up from Proctor Teagan next time we're on board the Prydwen."

"Not - exactly," she admitted uneasily. "Or not completely, at least. It just - reminds me a little of getting into the cryo pods at the vault."

His expression softened. "I'd recommend you wear it without the helmet," he said. "It's less constrictive, so it might be easier for you."

"Why don't you wear yours?" she asked.

"I find it impedes my peripheral vision to a considerable extent," he said. "It's good practice to wear a helmet in combat situations, but any protection is better than none. Power armour is too heavy for deathclaws to lift straight off the ground, in any case."

"So if I'm wearing power armour without a helmet," she began. "And a deathclaw tries to pick me up by my head but can't lift the weight - does that mean it would just pull my head right off? Just hypothetically."

"Let's - not let any of them get close enough to try," he said, dubiously. "If you're all right, we should get moving."

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go."


	6. He Says the Same Things to Me

Thank you very much for your kind words (and follows and faves)! Dear 'Impressed fan' please de-anon and become my friend, I am pathetically grateful any time someone gets my pretentious literary references.

* * *

"Two hundred and fifty caps?" Ella repeated. "Sure. Why would I have a problem with that? They're _bottlecaps_."

MacCready glanced sideways at her. "Okay," he said, as if he was waiting for the punchline.

"Would you mind counting them out for me?" she asked. "I in no way can be bothered doing this right now." She tossed her sack of caps on the coffee table in front of him. The caps jingled as the bag hit the wooden surface.

MacCready didn't move. "Alright, what the fuck is going on here?" he asked. "Is there a bear trap or something in here?"

She frowned, leaning forward to flick open the bag herself. "No? Why, what's the problem?"

"Don't see too many people around here that careless with their money," he said, leaning forward cautiously. "Not sure how this is going to work out for me."

"Well, money's a different issue," she said. "No matter how long I spend out here, I can't take these seriously. What are they even backed by?"

MacCready sat back in his seat, still eyeing the bag. "Backed by?"

"Yeah. Currency that's not actually made out of anything valuable is effectively worthless." She picked up a bottlecap and flipped it in her fingers. "It's a promise from a government - or a bank, I guess - that it's representative of something actually valuable. Gold or silver, traditionally, but theoretically it could be anything people need. _These_ don't seem to be backed by anything or by anyone."

"All right," he said slowly. He leaned back on the couch and put his feet up on the table, nudging the bag of caps to the side. "You're from a vault, right?"

"Is it that easy to tell?" she asked. "I thought once I ditched the vault suit it wouldn't be quite that obvious." She tugged at the sleeve of her t-shirt.

"Yeah," he said. "You got that 'really, _really_ not from around here' thing going on. So what kind of horror story did you come from?"

"What?" she asked.

"The vaults were all some huge, weird experiment, right?" he said. "Each vault got a different one. What was yours? Raised by economists?"

She blinked. "They're all experiments?"

"Haven't been to a lot of other vaults, huh?" MacCready asked. "You want to sit down?"

She sat down on the couch beside him. "What - what other kind of experiments did they do?" she asked, uneasily.

"Oh, off the top of my head - stuff with super mutants, cloning, chems in the air vents. I know of one that wasn't meant to open ever, which I think was some kind of compliance test. Some turn out better than others, but - I wouldn't say many of them turn out _good_."

"But - who was doing the experiments?" she asked. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Vault-Tec? The government? Who knows? I try to avoid them if I can. They're creepy. Not to mention dangerous. Anyway, you never told me what your vault did."

"Cryogenics," she said, warily.

"Cryo- wait, really?" He sat up. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-one," she said. "My birthday's in November."

He shook his head impatiently. "No, I meant what year were you born?"

She hesitated. "2046."

"Son of a bitch," he said, looking her up and down. "You don't look a day over a hundred and fifty."

"That's funny," she said, without smiling.

He gave her a crooked grin. "Let me buy you a drink," he said.

She gestured to the bag of caps on the table.

He narrowed his eyes. "Are you fuckin' serious with this whole 'I don't believe in caps' thing?" he asked. "Because I really can't tell, and it's kinda important to whether I sign on or not."

She sighed. "Not really. I understand caps pay for goods and services. But it's been a rough few days and I'm just sick of how nothing makes any kind of goddamn sense any more. Seriously, this economy is based on _nothing_ , and one day it's going to fall over." She held up a hand. "Take it from someone who knows what a shitty economy looks like. It cost me twenty thousand dollars the last time I filled my car up."

"So you got any financial advice for me?" he asked.

"I'd invest in manufacturing," she said. "Unless you're into farming, in which case cattle's probably safest. Land in Massachusetts has always been terrible for tobacco, otherwise I'd go with that. Were you going to get me that drink?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Be back in a minute," he said. He stood up, then nodded to the bag on the table. "And put that away, will you? It's making me nervous."

The bag was gone by the time he returned, her feet on the table in its place, crossed at the ankle. He handed her a glass.

"Thank you." She took a sip, then grinned. "Is this a Long Island iced tea?" she asked, delighted. "This tastes like every bad decision I made in my twenties."

"Is it?" he asked. "We call it a 'warhead'."

"It's pretty close," she said. "It's missing the tequila, though. And the, uh, orange one. But this isn't exactly cactus or orange-growing territory so I guess I'll just have to deal with it."

"So what's your story?" he asked, sitting back down. "You thaw out one day, the world looks nothing like you left it - now what?"

"Well," she said, the smile fading from her face. "My son was kidnapped. And I'm getting him back."

"How old's your son?"

She looked up. There was a tension around his eyes that hadn't been there before; a faint frown line between his brows.

"He's - ten," she said tersely. "But he was younger when I last saw him." She paused. "His name's Shaun."

"Do you know where he is?"

Ella put down the glass. "Have you ever been to the Glowing Sea?" she asked.

"Nope," he said. "And I'm not in any hurry to."

"Thought you might not be," she said. "How about taking me as far as the library, then?"

"I could do that," he said. "Daisy's always talking about getting that place cleared out. Lot of super mutants around there."

"If there weren't, I probably wouldn't need your help."

"That all you want?" he asked. "It's gonna be a short trip."

"Well, if you want to stick around for a little longer, we could check out CIT." She shrugged. "Odds are they'll have something."

"What is it you're looking for?" he asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

"I think I'm going to have to teach myself mechanical engineering in about a week," she said, rolling her eyes at the idea. "I mean, I'm sure that's achievable, it's only, what, a four year degree."

"And your sudden interest in engineering is because-" He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "If you're going to the Glowing Sea, power armour might be a good idea?"

"That's right," she said, smiling. "I'm not building a set, I'm just making sure what I've got is going to keep as many rads out as possible. This has the potential to go pretty wrong."

He watched her for a moment, thoughtfully. "I've seen you in here before," he said. "You and that robot detective."

"Nicky," she said.

"So where's he tonight?"

"You want his schedule, you should ask his assistant," she said, taking a long swallow from her glass.

"Just wondering what it is you need me for."

She rubbed her eyebrow. "I thought this was your job interview, not mine."

"Just want to make sure I know what I'm walking into," he said coolly. "If the synth turned this down because it's too dangerous-"

"Oh," she said. "I see. No, we had a - well, not a falling out, exactly. It's just that - I want my son back, and I don't want to have to save the world along the way."

"I see," he said, nodding slowly. "You know, a lot of people you meet out here will tell you that someone needs to _do_ something about all these terrible things that are going on in the world. Very few of them will follow that up with 'and I'm the one that's going to do it'. It's always a problem for someone else to solve."

She smiled, sidelong, at him. "So, you in?"

He heaved a sigh. "You're going to make me count those goddamn caps, aren't you?"

Her smile widened. "I need to save my maths brain for learning engineering," she said.

"If you're struggling to count to two hundred and fifty, I'm not sure how well your 'maths brain' is gonna help you out with your whole plan," he said. "Fine, I'll count them. But I'm not doing it now, I'll count them in the morning. Go get a room at the Rexford and I'll meet you outside at ten."

"Appreciate it," she said, standing up.

"I'm charging you extra for making me count it," he said, when she was almost at the door.

"That's enterprising of you," she said, glancing back over her shoulder. "Goodnight."


	7. Violet and a Rose

Ella slumped back against the wall, yanking the welding goggles down around her neck. She hung up the arc welder carefully on its hook on the power armour station and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. The shade of the carport did nothing to protect from the blanketing heat of the day. She tugged one of her thick leather gloves off with her teeth and reached for the thick hardcover book she'd pushed over to the side, away from any drifting sparks. She flipped it open to a spot marked with a scrap of paper, and stared hard at the dense page of black and white text.

She was almost grateful when she heard footsteps approaching.

"Hey there," said Piper.

"Piper," said Ella. "Have you come to take me away from all this?"

Piper handed her a nuka cola. "Uh - metaphorically, I guess. I was wanting to hear about your latest adventures."

Ella cracked the top off with a hiss and gulped down half of it gratefully. "Anything in particular?"

"Maybe," said Piper. "You've met Maxson. What's he like?"

Ella raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting question." She hauled herself to her feet against the yellow frame of the power armour station, got up onto her tiptoes, then peeked around the side of the house.

"Nah, he's all the way down by the bridge," said Piper, grinning. "Come on, you think I don't know how to protect my sources?"

Ella pulled off the other glove and dropped both of them on the workbench behind her. She sat down again on the concrete edge of the carport, legs dangling into the long dry grass below. "He's - uh, very _intense_ ," she said. "This is off the record, right? Because it's going to be really obvious who this is coming from if you quote me verbatim."

"It'd be good for them," said Piper, sitting down next to her. "They need their cages rattled a little."

"Rather not deal with a court-martial," said Ella. "But that's just me."

"That's fair." Piper shrugged. "So, what do you mean by intense?"

"I mean-" Ella tilted her head to one side contemplatively. "He's very serious. Talks a big game."

"Well, that's funny," said Piper. "I mean I don't know _any_ other super-serious Brotherhood types."

Ella covered her grin with her hand. "No, I mean - it's more than that. When he talks to you it's kind of like he's giving a speech _all of the time_. He's always _on_. I don't think it's disingenuous, exactly, but there's something just a little bit - off." She paused. "Maybe it's that he's trying to act older than he really is? He's like twelve years old."

"He - excuse me?" Piper stared.

Ella shook her head impatiently. "Not literally twelve years old. But I mean he's barely out of his teens. He grows this huge beard, I think to hide how young he is, but - he's _very_ young."

Piper leaned closer. "How old _is_ he?"

"Twenty," said Ella. "Twenty years old. How old is that Diamond City Radio DJ? Travis, isn't it?"

"He's-" Piper hesitated. "Twenty-four, I think."

"Yeah," said Ella. "So, four years younger than Travis. I mean, I get life expectancy has dropped by a lot, but he's not even old enough to drink. Well, he wouldn't have been."

"Wow," said Piper.

"Yeah," said Ella again. "You give a kid that young a lot of big ideas and a lot of big guns and don't be surprised if you get a lot of trouble."

"You surprise me," said Piper. "I really thought you believed in the Brotherhood more than this."

"It's hard to believe in much of anything these days, to be honest," said Ella. "But don't get me wrong. The Brotherhood wants to clean up the Commonwealth, and to be fair, no one else looks like they're going to do it. Maybe it's trading some liberty for security, but I have a feeling old Ben Franklin didn't have super mutants in mind when he came up with that line."

"Oh," said Piper, deflatedly. "Why'd you have to go and get my hopes up like that, Blue?"

"I just - feel like you don't really understand what we've lost," said Ella. "It was - walking down the street without getting shot at. Not needing to own at least six different guns for use in different situations. Never knowing anyone who'd died violently. Never seeing a dead body. Public transport, garbage collection, street sweepers. I get that things can't go back to the way they were - for another couple hundred years at least, probably - but this way is going to be a lot quicker than any other way, as far as I can tell." She shrugged. "Of course, Americans of my generation have a certain _faith_ in the military, which may or may not be misplaced but it's hard to get rid of," she continued. She nodded across the street. "That's our 'support our troops' bumper sticker on that station wagon over there. So maybe it's that and I'm just looking for familiar things again."

"I can't even imagine what that must be like," said Piper quietly.

"I don't mean to go on about it," said Ella. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine," said Piper. "It's only natural to compare your life then to your life now. I'm just sorry it seems to be such a disappointment."

"It's not really helpful, though, is it?" Ella sighed. "Guess I just need to focus on the future."

"What are your plans for after you get your son back?" asked Piper.

"I have absolutely no idea," said Ella. "I mean, I don't even know if I'll stay. I heard things are a lot better out west, and I'm not going to lie to you, I am not cut out for this kind of life. Do you think they need lawyers in California? I really miss avocados."

"You talk about food constantly," said Piper. "Is it really that bad?"

"I do not," said Ella. "But if I did it would be totally justified. What the hell is a tato? They're disgusting."

"I read somewhere it was two old world vegetables crossed together. But I don't remember which."

"Logically it's a tomato and a potato," said Ella. "But that doesn't even make sense. I mean, I guess they're both nightshades, but they're not even the same parts of the plant, they shouldn't just get mashed together into one edible fruit. Semi-edible fruit. What are you even meant to do with them?"

"They're not bad in a soup," said Piper. "Adds texture. I'll let you get back to it, though, I've taken up enough of your time."

Ella settled back down, staring balefully at the book.

She wasn't sure how long it was before she heard a familiar clanking.

"So this is what you've been carting all that junk around for," said Danse. "I've been wondering."

"Why else would I need to carry around like eight batteries?" asked Ella sharply, looking up. "Because I enjoy dealing with unexpected sulfuric acid leaks?"

"I'm impressed you're undertaking this work yourself," he said. "This isn't easy."

"Well what are my other options?" asked Ella. "Call up Teagan on the phone and ask him if he's got any pieces lying around? I'm not hiking to the airport and back on the off-chance he's got some pre-made."

He crouched on the other side of the suit she was working on. "Tell me what you're doing."

She grimaced. "I'm just doing the lead-lining. Seems to be the easy bit."

"Did you weigh the lead first?" he asked.

"Of course I did," she snapped. "What did you think I was going to do, nail a handful of lead to the outside and call it a day?"

He narrowed his eyes cautiously. "Why don't you take a break?" he suggested. "Let's go for a walk."

"Why don't you-" she began, but cut herself off. "Okay." She climbed to her feet, stretching out her aching shoulders.

"Why don't I what?" he asked, as they began to walk to the end of the street.

She grinned self-consciously. "Didn't have anything in mind specifically," she said. "I just realised halfway through saying it that taking a break was probably a pretty good idea."

"Having some trouble?" he asked.

"Why would you think that?" she asked. "This is great. I love physics, which is why I became a lawyer."

"Power armour is designed to be highly modifiable," began Danse.

"I know," she said. "Which is fantastic for me because of how much I love physics."

"One of the benefits of this," he continued, patiently. "Is if you're making relatively minor changes, you only need to factor in the effects of the increased weight on the servomotors, rather than recalculate the required power output for the entire unit."

"You - no," she said, stopping. "What, really?"

He turned to face her. "Yes. I was concerned you may have been - overcomplicating things."

"Well, that - that's going to make this a lot easier." She raked her fingers through her hair, damp with sweat. "I'm not used to being completely incompetent at things, you know?" she asked. "This brand new world and I can't do a goddamn thing in it. I really miss the whole 'division of labour' concept."

"I'd say you've been remarkably adaptable, given the circumstances."

She gave him a confused smile. "Uh - thanks? I feel like I've largely survived this long by depending on the kindness of strangers."

"Don't sell yourself short," he said. "I see a lot of potential in you."

"If it's a compliment I'll take it," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Thanks for the pep talk. And, you know, for talking me down."

"You about ready to get back to work?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Think so."


	8. He'll Have to Go

Oh my gosh sorry for the huge unexpected delay. Work got very busy and writing all day and then trying to write more at night is freakin exhausting.

* * *

Ella couldn't bear to be away from Sanctuary Hills for too long. Old ghosts followed her around the neighborhood, shadowing her every step. There was the Cofran's house, the yard where their daughter Cindy used to play; the Whitfields; the Callahans, and then the Ables, closing the loop at the end of the street. Dappled sunlight shone through the dead trees.

She was standing at the end of the cul-de-sac, watching the river, when Danse approached her.

"I need to talk to you," he said, brusquely.

She turned, startled. "Sure," she said. "Is something wrong?"

"It's about the supermutant," he said.

She looked down. 'Ah," she said. "Alright. Let's - take a walk." She turned towards the north, the dead forest behind her old house. The brown grass rustled under her feet. Once she was sure they were out of earshot of anyone at the camp, she turned to Danse.

"I think you know what I'm going to say." His eyes were stony. "It shouldn't be here."

She couldn't hold his gaze. "I thought-" she began. "That maybe - he was one of the good ones."

"There are no good supermutants," he said.

She couldn't disagree. "He helped us," she said unsteadily. "Against the other super mutants. He was - willing to talk to us, didn't attack..." She trailed off. The justification sounded feeble, even to her.

"It's not safe for anyone here," he continued. "And it's not safe for you to be alone with it. Every time I see you leave with it following you, I think, 'maybe this is the one she doesn't come back from. Maybe this is the last time I'm going to see her'."

"He's never tried to hurt me," she said. "Or anyone here."

"I can tolerate the synth," said Danse. "He shouldn't exist, but he's not the same level of threat as the super mutant."

"He's not a synth," she said. "He's a brain scan of an old Chicago cop."

"That's not the same thing as being human."

"He used to be human." She knew she sounded petulant, but she couldn't help it.

"A lot of things out here used to be human," he said. "Ghouls. Supermutants. Doesn't mean they still are."

"I thought he just wanted to know more about humans." She closed her eyes. "But all he talks about is - killing people and eating them."

"That's it," said Danse, unholstering his laser rifle. "It dies tonight."

"No!" She put a hand on the metal chest plate of his armour, as if she could stop him.

He looked down at it and back up at her. "Give me one reason why not," he said.

"Because I invited him here," she replied, unhappily. "If I invite someone - they're safe. I'll - I'll tell him to go."

He lowered his weapon. "You know why this bothers me."

"Yes," she said quietly. "And I'm sorry to - put you in this position. I just thought - maybe this could be the start of something important. A super mutant who can reason, who wants to know more about humans and how they act-" She hesitated. "I thought we could find some sort of common ground between humans and mutants, maybe. See if we could find some way to coexist. But -

it just seems like the only reason he wants to know more about us is because he wants to know how to kill us better. He's more intelligent than the others - not intelligent enough to be deceptive, maybe, which doesn't work in his favour, but intelligent enough to be ambitious. I don't think he'll ever get anywhere with it, but..." She let her sentence trail off.

"It'd be safer for everyone in the Commonwealth to kill it now," said Danse. "Before it ever finds anything to use against us. I don't know why you're insisting it stays alive."

She pressed her lips together and shook her head minutely.

"You know what I'm saying is true," he said.

"Yes," she said, looking up. "I do. But - I can't agree to it. Not like this."

He held her gaze for a moment longer, then holstered his rifle. "If I ever see it again," he said. "It won't get a second chance."

She nodded.

He took a step towards her and lowered his voice. "I appreciate you didn't grow up with these threats. You haven't seen the atrocities they're capable of. But believe me - the Brotherhood is only doing what's necessary."

She wrapped her arms around herself. "I know," she admitted, quietly. "You're right, He's a risk. I'll - go tell him to leave."

"Do you need backup?" he asked.

"I - no," she said. "I don't think so. I don't think he'll get aggressive."

"I'll be watching," he said.

She smiled weakly. "Thanks," she said, and turned to look for Strong.

She spotted him in the master bedroom of what used to be the Cofran's house, gazing at a wrecked set of drawers, and ducked through the empty doorframe. There was an old serving dish on the kitchen counter that Ella vaguely remembered buying them as a housewarming gift, the floral pattern faded and the ceramic chipped. She looked away quickly, uncomfortable.

"Human!" Strong had appeared in the bedroom doorway. "Strong bored. We leave now?"

She glanced out the window. Danse probably couldn't see her from where he'd been standing.

"Hey, buddy," she said. "I think we need to talk."

Strong lumbered towards her. She could feel the ruined house shake with every step.

"No more talking," he said impatiently. "Go now."

"I - don't know how to find the milk of human kindness," she said. "I think maybe you'd be better off looking for it on your own."

He leaned down towards her, peering at her with his tiny yellow eyes. "Hmph. Useless."

"I'm sorry," she said, staring at his craggy face; his nose, flattened like a boxer's, his skin pocked and scarred.

It seemed like an age before he finished his inspection and straightened up again. She didn't know what he'd been looking for. "Strong leave," he announced. "Find milk of human kindness without human."

"It's really more of an abstract concept-" she found herself saying, but he'd already walked out of the house.

She followed him out into the street and watched him pensively as he slowly made his way down the street and out of Sanctuary Hills. She watched his heavy stride until he disappeared around the corner, then let out a long sigh.

"You did the right thing," said Danse.

She jumped. She hadn't heard him coming.

"Yes," she said, unhappily. "I think so. I still - can't help but feel like I'm missing something, though.

"Missing what?" he asked. "Seems straightforward to me."

"I don't know," she said. "Something that would have made this all make sense. I guess I'm looking for meaning where there isn't any."

"I don't want to crush your idealism," he said. "Being able to see the potential in everything is a valuable quality. You just need to assess threats realistically."

"For a minute I thought you were just going to go ahead and shoot him anyway," said Ella. "I couldn't have stopped you."

He jerked back as if she'd slapped him. "You thought I'd ignore your decision and follow my own course of action?" he asked in disbelief. "No. I back my team. Even if I don't always agree with their decisions."

"No matter what?" she asked.

He sighed. "Ella - you've earned my trust. Thing would have to be more difficult than this before I overruled any of your decisions."

"More difficult than this?" she asked.

"Well, you have some unusual habits, " said Danse. "You've amassed quite a disparate group of individuals. I'm no behavioural expert, but this seems like a pattern."

She smiled, faintly. "When I first - woke up, if that's the right word for it - I was on my own for a long time. It was a while before I met any people, and longer before any of them would agree to follow me. Maybe all I'm doing is trying to make sure that never happens again."

"That won't ever happen again," he said, turning towards her. "You're part of the Brotherhood now."

She widened her smile for a fraction of a second. "Yeah," she said. "Old habits, I guess."

"That must have been hard," he said. "The Commonwealth is an extremely inhospitable place. Even as a fully-armed squad we found it - difficult."

"That's one word for it," she said. "I don't think I slept for about two weeks. Hard when no one's watching your back, you know?"

"Extremely hard," he said. "You've never told me about this before."

"I try not to think about it too much," she said. "Preston sent me off to help these settlers, and they said they'd been having some trouble with some raiders who were hanging out in the Corvega factory and would I please be able to do something about it? "

"You made an assault on the Corvega factory on your own?" he asked. "That's a particularly hazardous location. Heavily fortified."

"I - tried," she said. "Figured out very quickly I wasn't going to make it as far as the front door and got out." She paused. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. Things are - better, now."

The sky was fading into a soft purple.

"I should get some rest," she said. "I need to set out for the Glowing Sea tomorrow."

"Are you sure taking the synth with you is a good idea?" asked Danse.

"Well, I don't want to expose anyone else to that kind of radiation," she said. "Makes sense to take someone who's not going to be affected. Plus, he's a damn good shot." She offered a weak smile. "I'll be okay."

"It's your decision," he said. "Keep an eye on your Geiger counter."

"I will," she replied, ruefully. "That clicking's pretty hard to ignore."

"It's meant to be,* he said. "Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning before you go." He turned to leave.

"I figured out who you reminded me of," she said, as he was walking away. "It's silly, though."

He turned back to face her. "Silly?"

She smiled, embarrassed. "Yes, it wasn't even just a single person. It - before the war, my father was an army doctor. And sometimes he'd take me onto the base with him, if he had to make a quick trip in, and if we stopped to talk to any of the soldiers on base they would be on their absolute best behaviour. Very serious, very formal. It wasn't for years that I realised they weren't like that all of the time. Or even most of the time. Except - you are."

"I didn't know you were from a military family," he said.

"I'm not sure that means the same thing now as it did then," she said. "We never lived on base, or anything. I - I'll tell you more about it when I get back."

"I'll hold you to that," he said. "Goodnight."


	9. Don't Let Me Cross Over

Yikes. I had to split this one into two chapters to a) actually get an update down, and b) stop this chapter from getting out of hand. As the next chapter is partially written already though, it shouldn't take as long to get the next one up!

* * *

"You're still fighting it rather than working with it," said Danse. "You need to relax. Power armour can be difficult to get used to."

"Are you sure I didn't calculate the weight wrong?" Ella asked, twisting uncomfortably to try and look at her legs.

"You'd know if you'd calculated the weight wrong, because you wouldn't be able to move," he said. "The servos shut down rather than burn out. You just need to try and move normally. Keep your movement to a minimum. You're not actually pushing around four hundred pounds of metal, so you don't need to try and force it to move."

She took a few steps experimentally.

"Better," he said, dubiously. "Are you sure you're ready to do this?"

"I don't have a choice," she said.

"There's always a choice," Danse said, frowning.

"How about you let the lady make her own decisions?" said Nick. "She knows what she wants."

Ella turned to see Nick leaning against the side of a house, inspecting his metal hand casually.

Danse glared at him. "I'm trying to make sure she doesn't die out there," he said. "Because I know I can't rely on whatever you are to keep her safe."

"It's fine," Ella said, laying a hand lightly on the forearm of his power armour. "I'll be fine."

His frown deepened. "I'll head back to the police station," he said. "It's time I checked in with the rest of the team."

"Are the others jealous I've been taking up all your time lately?" she asked, smiling slyly.

"They understand you need more of my attention at the moment."

"I don't know how long this will take," she said. "I could come back through Cambridge on my way back?"

He nodded."All right," he said. "Be careful."

"I'll be careful," she replied.

The day was cold and crisp as Ella and Nick set out, following the deserted Interstate 95. Abandoned cars littered the cracked highway. The Commonwealth had an eerie, lonely beauty, the russet-brown hills rolling into the distance.

"You okay with the way he treats you?" Nick asked.

She glanced over at him, smiling faintly. "Shouldn't I be?"

"You don't seem like the type of lady to need a man to look after her."

"You make it sound so tawdry," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"It isn't?"

"Well, not like that," she said. "I'm not trading those kinds of favours."

"That's not what I meant," he said.

"Well, in that case, I guess you could make the argument there's some degree of tawdriness," she said. "But there's nothing quite like a deathclaw picking you up by your head to get you to reevaluate your priorities. Now I'm not quite sure if an army's enough to look after me."

"You know, I get why you signed up with them," he said. "I really do. If I was in your shoes, I might have done the same thing. What I do think you need to start considering though, is your exit strategy."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, let's say we all get to the end of all this," he said. "You've got your son back, you're ready to settle down somewhere and catch up on everything that's happened in the past two hundred years. You think the Brotherhood of Steel is going to let you go that easy?"

She grimaced. "I'd thought about heading west," she said. "I heard it was better out there. Not sure what 'better' means these days, but this place sets a pretty low bar."

"Well," he said. "I don't think it's going to be quite as easy as handing in your two weeks' notice. Unless you want to raise your son on board that airship."

"He's probably about as old as the other squires," she said. "Almost. That's - not the kind of life I want for him."

"Just keep that in mind. Think about the person you want him to grow up to be."

The next few hours passed in silence as they made their way south. Every sound made her jump - each breeze blowing through the dry bushes, every pebble that rolled down the nearby slope, despite not seeing more than a couple of radstags the whole time.

It was getting late when she stopped, squinting towards the horizon. She raised her arm to shade her face against the setting sun. "Is that a radiation storm coming in?" she asked, gazing towards a yellow glow on the horizon. "Let's find some shelter until it passes."

Nick looked at her. "That's not a storm," he said. "That's our destination."

"Oh," she said. Her arm fell to her side.

"Not what you were expecting?" he asked. "The name didn't give it away?"

"I don't - know," she said, haltingly. "W-what is that, Medfield? Norwood? I d- I don't understand, did - did they bomb that intentionally? What were they trying to hit? There wasn't anything there, was there? Just - just trees and these little towns, and-"

He turned to face her. "This the first time you've seen it?" he asked. "I forget sometimes how new this all is to you."

"Why is it still - still like-" she broke off. "I don't understand." She couldn't tear her eyes away from the shimmering cloud in the distance.

"All right," said Nick. "Let's take a break overnight before we head in there. Should be a place close by, if memory serves."

She followed him wordlessly. He led her to a set of two run-down old houses alongside the highway. The glass in the windows had long since shattered, but the roof overhead looked solid.

He led them inside one of the shacks. The buildings had been picked almost clean by scavengers, doors torn from cupboards and wooden drawers smashed on the floor. Most of the furniture in the house had been broken or had fallen apart over time, except for a faded yellow sofa and a dirty mattress leaning against the wall.

She stepped up to the wall and disengaged her power armour. When she stepped out of it her legs were shaking. She sat down on the sofa weakly and leaned her head on her hands.

Nick handed her a can of pork and beans. She stared at the cold, congealed mess and put it down on the floor by her feet.

"I saw the bombs hit," she said, quietly, disjointedly. "I saw that bomb hit. I felt it. The ground - shook. It was so close. We were the last people who made it into the vault. The shockwave passed over the vault entrance as we took the elevator down. Just - a cloud of burning dust. And then the door closed overhead." She clasped her fingers together tightly. "There were people right behind us." She couldn't breathe, panic grasping at her throat, her lungs burning the way they'd burnt running from her house to Vault 111, the nuclear alert siren ringing in her ears, the beat of her old tennis shoes slapping on the dry dirt slope.

"Ella," Nick was saying. "Ella. It's okay. It's over now."

She became dimly aware he was sitting next to her.

"Breathe slowly," he said.

"S-sorry," she said. "Jesus."

"Don't apologise," he said, gently. "Has that happened before?"

She touched her fingers to her forehead. "No," she said. "It's - I don't know."

"I've been meaning to ask how you're doing," he said. "But maybe this answers that question."

She closed her eyes and smiled, embarrassed. "I'm fine. I just - I don't know. I try not to think about - everything - most of the time."

"That might not be a strategy you can keep up long-term," said Nick.

"Well," said Ella. "I'll deal with that when I can't keep it up any more."

He frowned. "I don't want to see you destroy yourself," he said. "I know how hard it is to wake up out here and suddenly it's two hundred years later."

She sat back. "At least I had a fairly solid chain of events which made sense," she said. "From what you've said, it sounds like you remember sitting down to get your brain scanned and then nothing until waking up out here."

He laughed ruefully. "Yeah. Not being human came as something of a surprise."

"I bet it did," she said. "But I guess you don't remember the war. If you can really call it a war."

"No," he said. "Sometimes I wonder where Nick was when the bombs fell. If any of the skeletons I've seen belong to him. Didn't spend a lot of time at the station, from what I can remember. Not sure where he'd be."

"You know what's strange?" asked Ella. "I really miss the sound of sirens. Not - not the nuclear alert sirens. Police cars. Fire trucks. Ambulances. You know, you hope you never have to call them yourself, but it makes you feel better to know that help is on its way."

He turned his head to look at her. "I don't think I ever met anyone with more faith in the pre-war government than you," he said. "Admittedly, the circles I ran in weren't the most trusting and optimistic, but you should know that's still an accomplishment."

"A dubious one," she said. "How do you mean?"

"There were a lot of dirty cops out there. And I don't mean dirty as in 'take a few thousand dollars to turn a blind eye to some retail stock going missing', I mean real dirty. As in 'take a hundred thousand to get rid of someone's political rival and make it look like a robbery gone wrong'. Always meant to move on to internal affairs after wrapping up the Winters case. Guess that didn't happen. Don't know if I would have been able to do a goddamned thing to clean up the Department, and probably would have got a couple of bullets in the back of the head as a thanks for my efforts, but - after losing Jen it didn't really seem to matter."

She watched him wordlessly.

"You've done a number on my head, kid," he said. "I knew who I was before you came along. Nick the synth, private detective. Talking to you about all these old memories - blurs all the lines I thought I'd got straightened out. Detective Nick Valentine, Boston PD. Nick the Synth, Diamond City. I spent years working out an identity for myself. Helps when no one around you knows what you're talking about."

She wrapped her arms around herself. "Sorry."

"Hell, it's not your fault," he said. "Maybe that says something about what I've been trying to avoid the past few years." He sighed. "Anyway. If you're not going to eat that, you should get some sleep."

Ella glanced over at the filthy mattress against the wall. "I think I'll take the sofa," she said. "Sorry if you were planning on sitting on it."

"Think I can manage," he said, standing up. He tossed her a blanket from their bags. "Let me know when you're ready to go in the morning."

She wrapped the blanket around herself. "Yeah," she said. "I will."


	10. Bus Fare to Kentucky

They stood at the edge of the Glowing Sea. The splintered trunks of dead trees spread out in front of them, bending away from the source of the blast. The sun was shining weakly, but a faint yellow haze hung over the road ahead.

Ella fitted the power armour helmet over her head, blinking as she adjusted to looking through the eyepiece. There was a faint hissing noise as the suit pressurised, and then a flood of new information as the environmental monitoring sensors blinked on. She was uncomfortably aware of the power armour holding her in place, straps supporting her head and limbs.

Her geiger counter started ticking as she stepped forward. She hesitated, uneasily, before pressing on. The yellow air thickened, closing in around them. The sunlight dwindled to a weak glow, then faded entirely, leaving them in a gloomy half-light. The metallic echoing of electrical discharge rattled against the hills in the distance.

Ella's breathing was loud in her ears as they picked their way along the remains of the shattered Interstate 95. Huge chunks of concrete and rebar lay scattered and broken across the ground, and a thick layer of ash filled the cracks in the parched, barren earth.

Rusted shells of cars were abandoned along the remnants of the highway. "They never stood a chance," said Ella, her voice crackling and flat through the power armour speakers. "They would have been able to hear it on the radio. Imagine being stuck in traffic, away from all the people you care about, and all you can do is sit and wait for the bombs to h-hit. Another twenty minutes, that might have been us."

She heard Nick's footsteps behind her stop, and turned around to look at him. His eyes glowed yellow through the mist.

"We don't have to do this today, Ella," he said.

"What?" Her voice echoed tinnily in her ears.

He shifted his weight, head tilted to one side as he watched her. "You sure you're up to this right now?" he asked. "The Glowing Sea doesn't go easy on people."

She was speechless for a moment. "I have to find Shaun."

"I know," he said gently. "I just want to make sure you actually make it that far."

She stood motionless. All she could hear was her own heartbeat and the crackling of the Geiger counter.

"I'm not saying we should go back," he said. "I'm saying you need at be at the top of your game."

"And you don't think I am," she said, half-questioning.

"I don't know, Ella," he said. "I'm not going to make that call. What I do know is you're not here in the present if your mind's two hundred years in the past."

She took half a step towards him. "I can't-" she began, but broke off. "I can't just stop. Not now."

"I want to see you find your boy," said Nick. "And I'm not in any kind of hurry to explain to those power armour-wearing friends of yours why you're not coming home. If you want to keep going, that's fine with me - but at least let me go first. I'm worried you're going to trip over a deathclaw."

"I don't even know where we're going," she said, her voice cracking. "This has to be two hundred square miles. Do we just walk in there and look around? I don't know what to do."

"That pip-boy of yours have a map?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "It comes up on my display, but I can't show you without getting out of the armour."

"Anything interesting on it?"

She flicked over to the map display. It superimposed itself over her field of vision. "There's a crater," she said. "Is that where the bomb hit? And part of the old highway."

"Well, we know he didn't want to be found," said Nick. "Who knows what he took from the Institute to help him survive out here? Let's head for that, and if your pip-boy comes up with anything else along the way, we can check it out."

She let out a long breath. "Okay," she said, weakly, and watched as he walked past her. She fell into line behind him and followed him down the road.

Nick kept up a stream of commentary as they walked, but Ella couldn't respond. They walked past pieces of the world she used to live in; a crashed plane, surprisingly intact; a Red Rocket station tossed like a toy. It seemed like nothing could survive in such hostile conditions, but the Glowing Sea was densely populated. Nick led them carefully around radscorpion nests and sleeping deathclaws, aimless packs of feral ghouls wandering in their wake.

The landscape grew more alien as they approached the crater. The craggy rock beneath them was a dull grey, the air hazy and thick with glowing particles. Swaths of ground had fused to pale green speckled glass.

The storm was now overhead, the sky a churning mass of clouds and flashes of lightning. She could hear the rasping of dust against her power armour in the vicious gusts of wind that blew past.

Ella had stopped trying to figure out where they were, stopped trying to grasp at fragments of buildings she thought she recognised and fit them into her memory. She focused instead on following Nick's slight form, his trench coat billowing around him.

They paused on the lip of the crater. There was a rusted metal structure in the centre, sitting on top of a pool of glowing liquid. A row of shacks were perched precariously on the slope around it.

"Are those - people?" asked Nick.

She followed his gaze. Deep down, in the bottom of the crater, she could just make out kneeling figures by the water's edge.

"How can anyone live here?" she asked. Her voice was croaky and dry.

"You think our Dr Virgil is down there?" he asked.

She swallowed. "I don't see how he could be anywhere else," she said.

"Let's go, then."

A woman stood up as they approached. Her skin was sallow, and her eyes reddened, but she smiled at Ella as they neared. "Greetings, child," she said. "You are a long way from home. Have you come to seek the glory of Atom?"

Ella looked at her blankly, exhausted. "What?"

Nick stepped forward. "We're looking for someone called Virgil," he said. "Any new recruits lately? They may not be calling themselves Virgil."

The woman's expression cooled considerably. "We know who Virgil is," she replied. "He is not one of our number."

"He's in the neighborhood, then?" asked Nick.

"I had concerns his presence would draw attention," she said, frowning. "I am not happy to have been proved right."

"We're not looking for any trouble with you folk," said Nick. "If you tell us where he is we'll be on our way."

"There's a cave a short ways to the southwest," she said. "I should warn you, though - he might not be what you're expecting."

"Thanks very much," he said. "We'll be in touch if we need anything else."

"We'll be in touch?" Ella asked, as they left.

"I guess that's a little unlikely," he admitted. "That would have been my standard sign-off to a witness at the close of an interview. I haven't said that in years."

She used both hands to pull herself up on to the edge of the crater. "I'm glad you're here," she said.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

The track to Virgil's cave was rough and rocky. "He still goes by Virgil," said Nick, as they followed the path. "Interesting decision for a man hunted by all the resources of the Institute."

"With Kellogg gone, who'd be coming after him?" she asked.

"As far as I know," he said. "Synths are immune to radiation. It wouldn't be so hard for them to get out here. If they managed to avoid the deathclaws and radscorpions, that is. You saw how easily I got that information. I won't be altogether surprised if they got to him before we do."

Her heart sank. "What do we do if he's dead?" she asked.

He stopped, and turned back to her. "We'll - find another way, if it comes to that" he said. "I shouldn't be expecting the worst just yet." He turned away. "Not out loud, anyway."

She was fairly sure he hasn't meant her to have heard the last part of his sentence, but her speakers picked it up. She paused for a moment, before falling back into line behind him.

The cave was nestled deep into a rocky outcropping, hard to see from the wrong angle and facing away from the winds.

They stepped inside cautiously. The wind howled against the cliffs outside. She could hear the familiar ticking noise of a machinegun turret close by. She glanced around the nearest corner, but ducked back as she saw the barrel tracking towards her.

Nick held up a hand for her to keep still. He tossed a small stone around the corner. After it got no response, he took his hat off, held it gingerly by the brim, and stretched his arm out of cover. He glanced back at her, shrugged, and stepped out. She held her breath, but he turned and jerked his head, signalling her to follow him. The gun barrel followed them as they squeezed past it, hugging the rough rock wall.

"Don't move!"

A hulking shape to her left made her turn. She reached for the gun at her hip reflexively as a super mutant lurched out of the half-darkness.

Nick caught hold of the barrel and forced it down."Easy," he said. "You're picking up some nasty habits from those friends of yours." He turned to the super mutant. "Dr. Virgil, I presume?"

"You've gone to a lot of trouble to find me," the super mutant said. "I knew the Institute wanted me dead. It was just a matter of time before you turned up here. Where's Kellogg? I would have expected he'd be the one to finish the job."

Ella's throat was dry, her hands still shaking. "He- he's dead," she said. "We killed him."

"You killed him?" Virgil asked. "Why? How?"

"He kidnapped my son." She lifted her arms to remove her helmet, so she could finally see better.

Virgil was silent for a moment. "Is that right?" he asked.

"His name - my son's name is Shaun," she said. "Have you seen him? He's about this tall-" She held out a hand. "And he's got sandy blonde hair."

"How old are you?" he rumbled. "The Institute doesn't take children, as a general rule."

"Thirty one," she said. "But there's some - time issues, because of this cryogenics thing. I think he's about ten years old."

The silence drew out again. "The only children at the Institute I've ever seen are the children of the people who work there," he said, carefully. "I'm - sorry."

"I have to get into the Institute so I can find him."

"I - see," said Virgil, slowly. "Well - I can help you find your way in. But I'll need something from you in return."

"What is it?" she asked.

"When I left the Institute," he began. "I infected myself with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, to turn me into - this. I needed to be able to survive the radiation out here. But the antidote, which could reverse the effects of the virus, is still in the Institute laboratory. If you make it into the Institute, I need you to bring that back to me here."

"Anything," said Ella.

Virgil sighed. "I don't know what state the lab will be in after I left. You'll have to be - careful."

She nodded impatiently. "How do I get in?"

"There's only one way into the Institute," he said. "The Molecular Relay. And there's only one way you can access it. You'll have to kill a courser-" He paused. "A special type of synth, designed for hunting other synths. They're - different to regular gen-threes. Stronger. Tougher. Faster. It - won't be easy."

She gave him a blank stare.

He sighed. "There's a chip embedded in their brain. A computer chip. Right at the base of the brainstem. Reproduce the signal code on that chip, and you can use it to get into the Institute."

"You make it sound so simple," Nick said dryly.

Virgil cast a long, measured look towards him. "You'll need to head to the CIT ruins. The chip emits a low-frequency signal you should be able to pick up on a radio. I can't guarantee you'll make it back, but that's how you can get in."

Ella nodded. "Thank you."

"And please," he said. "The serum. I can't live like this any more."

"All right," she replied.

"And," he hesitated. "I - hope you find what you're looking for."

They left the isolated safety of the cave and stepped out into the storm.

"Something wasn't quite right about that," said Nick.

She had to step closer to hear him. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I think there was something he knew but wasn't prepared to say." Nick frowned.

"Well, he's an ex-Institute scientist living in fear for his life," said Ella. "I'd probably be a little secretive as well."

"Maybe," said Nick. "You sure spooked him when you took your helmet off, though."

"You think so?" she asked.

"You didn't notice?" he replied. "Maybe it doesn't matter. Let's get out of here before you start glowing green."

They walked north, back into the yellow fog.


	11. What Does it Take

Apologies for the delay in posting this update! I've recently come back on a trip to the USA in which I visited some of the country's greatest Fallout locations with my good friend niule (who also proofread this chapter, thank you!). There are photos on my tumblr (link in profile) tagged with 'Fallout tour of America' in case you're interested. I even wrote some of this chapter in Boston!

* * *

Ella was exhausted by the time they reached Cambridge, just after midnight. The moon was high and full in the sky, casting a bone-white glow over the remains of her old college town, now red brick rubble and piles of crumbling marble.

"I think this might be where I say goodbye," said Nick. "I've got an awful lot of cases to catch up on, and your friends don't seem like they'd be keen on me hanging around."

She nodded. "Thank you," she said. "For coming with me."

"You going to be okay?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," she said, with a weak smile. "Just need a good night's sleep."

He sighed. "Well, you know where to find me," he said. "Look after yourself, kid."

He watched her as she walked through the police station gates, then turned back towards Diamond City.

She walked slowly into the police station grounds.

"Whoa!" A Brotherhood knight in power armour stepped into her path, holding up a hand. "Hold up there. Where have you come from? You're throwing some crazy readings on my Geiger counter."

"Glowing Sea," she said,

"Explains why your suit is red hot," he said. "I'm going to need you to step out of that and move away quickly. You can't take that inside."

"Sure." She climbed out of the suit. Her legs were shaky as she stepped to the ground and backed away from her power armour. The warm night air surrounded her like a blanket

"Thanks," he said. "Leave it out here for decon, okay? You can pick it up in the morning."

The dim lightbulb in the reception area cast a pale glow over the front desk. The stopped clock on the wall was shattered, its plastic hands fragile and cracking. She stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

Danse was sitting at one of the tables. He stood up when he saw her.

"Don't you ever sleep?" she asked, trying to smile.

"I wasn't expecting you back so soon," he said.

"I just wanted to - to sleep somewhere safe," she said.

"Did you find the Institute scientist?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "We did. He wasn't what I-" She sighed. "I'll tell you about it in the morning, okay?"

"Of course," he said, sitting back down.

She carried a spare sleeping bag into the holding cells and curled up on the cot in the cell furthest away from the door. As she was drifting off to sleep, she thought she could hear her Geiger counter crackling in her ears. She hauled her arm out from the sleeping bag to check her pip-boy, but it was silent. She could still hear the crackling in her ears as she went to sleep.

* * *

"Who's Mark?" asked Haylen. Her voice dragged Ella out of a deep sleep.

Ella blinked blearily, pushing herself upright. "What?" Dust motes danced in the sunlight that streamed between the cracks in the boarded-up window.

"Mark. You said his name in your sleep."

"Did I?" she asked. She leaned back against the exposed brick cell wall, stretching her shoulders uncomfortably. "I was thinking about him yesterday, I guess."

"Was he - your husband?" asked Haylen.

She shook her head. "No, no. He was - a junior partner at work. He lived in this gorgeous house out in Walpole, with these four little bushes out the front that he kept immaculately trimmed." She smiled. " Cheryl - his wife - had a baby a couple of months ago-" She broke off, frowning. "I mean, a couple of months - before. And he told me I should take Shaun to visit, now that their daughter was, you know, aware of other babies, smiling, making friends. But - I never did. It's just so hard, trying to get a six-month-old out of the house. Diapers, formula, things to keep him occupied if he gets unsettled. So, I never got around to it. I never thought that-" she broke off. "We used to joke about our kids growing up together and getting married."

Haylen wrapped her fingers around the iron bars and leaned her cheek against the door. "I'm sorry."

"It's-" She shrugged. "In the past."

"Why were you thinking about him?"

"Oh," said Ella. "Walpole's out to the, uh, southeast, along the I-95. My pip-boy says we walked right through that way yesterday, but - it's hard to tell."

"I can't imagine what it must be like," said Haylen, quietly.

Ella smiled weakly. "It's strange," she said. "It's easier if I try to not to think about it."

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Haylen. Her eyes were full of concern. "God knows Danse isn't the easiest to open up to about stuff like this."

"I - no. Not yet," she said. "One day, maybe. Hard to find anyone else who's been in quite the same situation."

"Well, if you ever feel like it..." said Haylen.

"That's kind of you," said Ella, softly.

Haylen sighed. "Well - it's hard being a new recruit. And I imagine it's even harder if-"

"You've got enough to worry about without adding me to the list," said Ella.

"You're part of the team, now." Haylen smiled crookedly. "I've got enough worrying for everybody." She stepped back. "Anyway, I came to let you know breakfast is ready, if you're hungry."

Ella could hear voices from the station command room; the crackling of radio transmissions as the base came to life.

"Did you cook it?" asked Ella. "Do you always cook?"

A frown flickered across Haylen's face. "It didn't use to be me," she said. "There's just - not many of us left, now. So I took over." She smiled awkwardly. "Danse just - doesn't care what things taste like, and Rhys is - well..."

"Difficult?" suggested Ella.

For a moment, it looked like Haylen was about to disagree. "He's - well, yeah." She shrugged.

"I'll be there in a minute," said Ella. "Thank you."

She took her time getting ready, trying to delay as long as she could. Her arms and legs ached from the unfamiliar feeling of moving for so long in power armour. She stretched her sore limbs out, wincing at the stiffness.

The others were eating when she arrived. She took a seat at the end of the table. Haylen passed down an omelette on a chipped white plate. She lifted a fork half-heartedly, trying not to think about what kind of animal had laid the egg..

"How was the mission?" asked Danse.

Ella looked down. "Can we talk about it later?" she asked.

Rhys looked up. "What, you don't want me and Haylen to hear?"

She put down her food. "I don't really feel like discussing the Institute over breakfast," she said.

"So when do you want to discuss it?" he asked.  
"That's enough, Rhys," said Danse.

Ella glanced up at him gratefully, but she caught Rhys' eye. He glowered at her. She kept her eyes focused on her plate until the others were finished.

She had finished about half of the omelette Haylen had made, and was pushing the remainder of it around her plate when Danse approached her seat.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, pushing her plate away. She stood to follow him out the door.

"I came in here once, before the war," she said, once they were outside. "To hand in a wallet I found on campus. It had - I don't know, a couple hundred bucks in it and a student ID. I think he was from Engineering. Don't know if he ever picked it up."

"You handed it in here?" asked Danse.

"Yeah," she said, uneasily. "You still have that, don't you? Places you can hand in things you find that don't belong to-" She broke off with a sigh. "Maybe not. Not here, anyway. Here, you just find stuff and assume the owner is dead and keep it. Jesus."

"You handed it - to the police?" he asked. "Instead of keeping it?"

"Well," she said uncomfortably. "It's just what you did. It wasn't because I'm a particularly altruistic person, it was more in a social contract kind of way." She shrugged a shoulder. "You know, it suits me better if I live in a world where people hand in lost wallets, rather than a world where people keep lost wallets, even if I benefit from finding a wallet. Plus, it was like a month until exams and it's a huge drama to get another ID card in a hurry. It'd just be an asshole move not to."

He looked at her seriously. "We can rebuild society here so it's like that again," he said.

"I - don't know if that's possible," she murmured, looking away. "But it's a nice idea."

"It's what we do," he said. "What's our next mission?"

"We have to kill a Courser," she said. "A - special type of synth. They're meant to be more dangerous than the regular type." She ran her Geiger counter over her power armour, standing out in the courtyard. It was clear, so she climbed inside.

"I assume they die like any other synth," he said, as the helmet closed over her head. "Not a problem."

She smiled. "You have a talent for simplifying a situation," she said. "Apparently the most likely place we can find one is at CIT."

He nodded. "What was it you didn't want to tell me in front of the others?" he asked. "About the Institute scientist."

She looked at him for a long moment before speaking. "He turned himself into a super mutant to escape the Institute."

Danse's eyes widened. "Why? Why would anyone do something that drastic?"

"Because he thinks he can turn himself back," she said carefully. "He created a very specific strain - for the purposes of escaping, I think - and he created an antidote that he thinks will reverse the effects of that specific strain. Only that strain."

"You're saying - there's a cure," he said.

She put a hand on the arm of his power armour, over the Brotherhood sigil. "No," she said. "There's no cure out there for any super mutant other than him. No other super mutant would be affected. And he doesn't even know if it'll work."

He took a step back. She let her arm drop to her side.

"I told you," he began. "About-"

"Your friend," she said quietly. "Yes. This wouldn't have cured him."

"How can you say that?" he asked unsteadily. "How do you know?"

"Did he talk to you?" she asked. "When you found him?"

"No," he said, subdued. "Just - attacked. The only reason I knew it was him were the remnants of his Brotherhood uniform."

"If he didn't talk, you couldn't have reasoned with him," she said.  
He sighed. "I know," he said. "But - I've always wondered if I could have done something more."

"How many years ago was that?" she asked gently. "Nine? Ten? Even if this - this potential cure could have turned him back, that's still a decade of a super mutant nest operating in DC - killing people, eating them, leaving those bags of - flesh everywhere. Hunting people to make more super mutants. You spared countless people from that. He was gone when you found him. And this isn't a cure. I need you to know that. As for this - this is an experiment. It's untested and it's not designed to work on anyone except for this one person."

He was silent, his brown eyes troubled.

"You didn't just save other people from him," she continued. "You saved him from a life of having to live like that. I didn't know him, but - that's not a life anyone would want. That's not a life I would want."

"I've justified it to myself hundreds of times," he said.

"Do you believe it?" she asked.

He frowned. "Let's just focus on the mission," he said.

"Right," she said, quietly, as he turned and walked away. She watched him for a moment, then began to follow him down the quiet back alley.

After a few steps he stopped, and turned back, forcing her to stop short to avoid walking into him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to cut you off. This - isn't easy for me to talk about. And I'm very aware you have enough to worry about without my own problems adding to it."

She looked down. "I shouldn't have pushed you on it. It's just - I didn't want you to think that this could have changed anything."

The silence drew out uncomfortably. "S-sorry," she stammered, at last. "Was that inappropriate? I know this is - important, to you, I didn't mean to-"

"No," he said. "Not at all. Just - unexpected."

She hesitated. "You're not used to-" she began, but her words were drowned out by a vertibird flying low overhead. They both looked up as the mounted minigun began to fire at a nearby building.

Two knights in power armour dropped from the vertibird, landing just out of sight. The sound of laser fire echoed off the decaying buildings.

Danse glanced towards her.

She nodded. "Let's help out."

They crept towards the sound of combat. Ella crouched as they rounded the side of the building, and took a moment to set her rifle bipod up on a fallen chunk of concrete. She lowered her head to look through the scope. She could see huge, hulking figures shrouded by clouds of dust rising from the ground around their feet. She took the time to line up her shot, watched for a moment, and then squeezed the trigger. The figures scattered, taking cover where they could.

* * *

As the dust was clearing, a figure in power armour strode up and whirled around, facing away from them. "Who in the hell did this?" she asked, gesturing towards her back. There was a large, ragged bullet hole not two inches away from the armour's fusion core.

Ella's eyes widened behind her helmet.

The knight turned back. "I'm looking at you because that is a large caliber ballistic weapon entry point, and you're the only one I see here holding a scoped rifle," she said. "Do you see how fucking close this is to my fusion core? Do you know what would have happened if you hit it?"

"I'm sorry," stammered Ella. "I didn't mean-"

"I mean, yeah, you'd have taken out the super mutants," the knight continued, sharply. "You just would have taken out me and two of my friends as well. No survivors, either, so there's an added bonus for you."

Danse took a step forward. "If you've got something to say, knight, you can say it to me," he said.

The knight turned towards him, then took a step back as she caught sight of the rank markings on his armour. "With respect, sir," she said, her voice clipped and precise. "You may want to have a discussion with your subordinate about appropriate target identification."

"Thank you, knight," he said. "That will be all."

"Sir." She turned back towards the waiting vertibird.

Danse turned to Ella as she walked away. "I don't really have to have a conversation about target identification with you, do I?" he asked.

She looked down. "No," she said. "Sir."

"That's - not necessary," he said. "And I'm not going to give you a dressing down. But this can't happen again."

"I could have killed her," Ella said, quietly.

"Yes," said Danse. "You were lucky. She was lucky. You know how close you came."

"I didn't - fire at anything I didn't think was a super mutant," she said.

"You need to be sure before you pull the trigger," he said. "If your target is too far away, or is in close combat with a friendly target, it's safer to hold fire."

She looked down at the rifle, clasped in the mechanical fingers of her power armour. "I - I'm not a soldier, Danse," she said, her voice shaking. She lowered the rifle to her side. The power armour suddenly seemed claustrophobic and stifling. "I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be putting people in this kind of danger."

Danse looked at her for a moment before responding. "You're the Brotherhood's best hope of achieving its aims in the Commonwealth," he said.

She was breathing heavily. "That's it?" she asked. "That's all I'm for? Everything else is just window dressing?"

He shook his head. "Everything else I can teach you," he said. "Ella, there's a place for you with the Brotherhood. You belong." He paused. "Are you okay?"  
"I don't-" She cut herself off with a sigh. "Yeah."

He looked at her for a moment longer, then nodded.

"Good," he said. "Let's move out."

* * *

This is secretly based on a true story (in that I accidentally shoot Brotherhood thinking they're super mutants ALL THE TIME whoops)


	12. I'm Falling Too

Ella stepped out of her power armour and leaned heavily on the metal handrail overlooking the floor below. The air was hot and stale, the thick metallic smell of laser fire hanging in the air.

The Courser was dead, sprawled out on the floor. The Gunners were dead, slumped against each other where the Courser had executed them.

She turned around. The left arm of her suit was warped and charred from taking a near-direct hit from a missile launcher downstairs. She touched it cautiously. Flakes of the metal came off on her fingertips, black and rough.

"You okay?" asked Danse.

"Yeah," she said, letting out a long breath.

"You're going to need to replace that," he said, leaning to inspect the damaged power armour arm. "That's not repairable."

"I figured," she said. "Pretty much as soon as it hit. The, uh, sensor readings went dark immediately on my display."

A flicker of movement to her right caught her eye. There was a girl behind a window, watching them. Ella had almost forgotten about her. When she saw Ella look over she took a step back in fright.

Ella moved slowly over to the window, stretching her arms out as she walked. She leaned in close to the glass.

"He was - hunting you, wasn't he?" Ella asked, quietly. "You were bait."

The girl nodded, rapidly. "Can you - let me out? Please?" she asked. "The password's in that toolbox over there, by the stairs." She pointed. "I just want to leave."

Ella nodded. The password had been written down on a scrap of paper in tiny crisp letters, tucked into the bottom compartment of the toolbox.

She curled the paper in her hand and carefully typed it into the computer.

"Th-thank you," said the girl, as the door opened "I'm K-"

"Don't tell me," said Ella, fighting the urge to glance back at Danse to see how close he was standing. "Just don't - say anything. You're not - safe, yet. You know where you're going?"

"Yeah," she said. "Bunker-"

"Don't tell me that either," said Ella, holding up a hand. "As long as you know where it is. Do you need anything?"

"I don't have a weapon," she said.

"Take a look through what the Gunners had," said Ella. "They've got some decent 10mm weaponry. Don't take the Courser's, you'll stand out. Or - if you want it, keep it hidden."

The girl seemed to relax for the first time, giving Ella a relieved smile. "Thank you."

"Good luck," whispered Ella, as the girl stepped lightly over the Courser's body and headed back downstairs.

Ella closed her eyes. When she opened them, Danse was standing over the Courser's body.

"That wasn't so tough," said Danse. "So, what do you need from this - thing?"

"There's a, uh, chip in his brain," she said, "That lets him communicate with the Institute's teleportation - thing. Base of his skull." She looked down at the corpse. Laser burns had eaten through his leather trench coat in numerous places, scorching the skin beneath. He'd taken more than ten of her bullets to the chest before he'd even showed he was hurt.

"Base of the skull?" Danse repeated. "Do you want me to do it?"

She looked up at him. His expression was neutral.

"I can do it," she said.

"Of course," he said. "Do you have a knife?" He offered her his combat knife, handle first.

She took it, feeling her cheeks going red, and crouched next to the Courser.

He looked human. She touched his scalp hesitantly, feeling his hair part under her fingers. His skin was still warm.

She ran her fingertips across the base of his skull and down to the first vertebrae of his spine, trying to feel for the chip the doctor had told her about. It felt normal. Human. She touched the blade to the skin at the nape of his neck and pushed down, hitting bone almost immediately.

She took a breath to steady herself, then dragged the blade down, flinching when the tip of the knife suddenly slid in under the skull. Blood started to spill from the cut, startlingly fast. She tried to push one edge of the wound to the side with the blade, but the skin of the Courser's scalp clung tightly to his skull. Her stomach lurched, and she threw herself back, hand pressed to her mouth. The knife skittered across the floor, spinning to a halt near the stairs.

"Ella-" Danse began.

"I can do it," she said. She crawled forward, picking the bloodied knife back up, and knelt once more in front of the corpse.

She slid the blade back into the space she'd cut and turned it, opening the wound to see inside. She didn't have much space. Thick ridges of muscle bordered the cut she'd made on both sides. She withdrew the blade, slowly, and laid it horizontally against the Courser's neck. Grey spots started to cloud her vision as she pushed down, sawing through the layers of muscle.

The wound yawned open under the blade, slowly filling up with blood. Blood flowed over her hands. She was breathing rapidly.

"Ella," Danse said again. "Put the knife down."

She paused, frowning, hand clasped around the handle. "I think I can see the chip-" she began.

"That's an order."

She stopped, finally, and turned to look at him, eyes wide.

"Put it down," he said, gently.

She pressed her lips together and slowly lowered the knife to the floor. "Are you serious?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady.

He walked over and picked it up. "I - have some concerns about your ability to handle this situation," he said.

"I can do this," she said, her voice almost a whisper.

"I have no doubts about your willingness to continue," he said. "But as your CO I have to recognise when you're not coping. And you're not."

She looked down at her hands, stained with blood. They were shaking.

"Take a break," said Danse. "I'll handle it."

She felt her face flush as she backed off to the far side of the room. She crouched to wipe her hands on the corner of a dead Gunner's jacket. There was still blood under her fingernails, filling the lines of her palms, clinging to her cuticles.

"You said you could see the chip," Danse said, crouching by the corpse.

"Yeah," she said, looking up from her hands. "It's just - where the spinal cord fits into the skull. Behind the vertebrae. There's something glowing."

She watched as Danse grasped the Courser's head firmly in one power-armoured fist, and his shoulder with the other.

Her eyes widened as she realised what he was going to do, but she couldn't look away, couldn't breathe.

With a startlingly loud crack, Danse wrenched the Courser's head from his body.

Ella felt her legs collapse under her as everything faded to grey.

She opened her eyes. Her head hurt. The linoleum floor was cold and hard.

Danse was leaning over her. "I should have anticipated this might happen," he said. "Are you okay?"

She sat up slowly. "I - I didn't realise power armour could - do that," she croaked.

"The increase in physical strength is one of the reasons the Brotherhood relies on it so heavily," he said. "Did you hit your head?"

She touched the back of her head carefully, trying to forget what it had looked like to cut into the Courser's head in the same area. "Not hard, I think. It might bruise."

Danse extended a hand towards her. She looked at it for a moment before taking it. He helped her to her feet.

She caught sight of the Courser's severed head, lying next to its body, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The side of his head was caved in, just above the temple, where the power armour fingers had crushed in his skull. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

Danse followed her gaze. "You have to remember," he said. "They may look human, but they're not."

"He-" she began, but broke off. "It - that felt - like I was cutting up - a person, I just-"

"It's not human," said Danse. "Here." He handed her the chip. "This is proof."

She took it gingerly. It looked small in her hand, grey and multifaceted, with orange LEDs protected by a clear plastic cover. Coiled wires protruded from the end where the chip must have plugged into the Courser's skull. Scraps of flesh still clung to it, caught in the wires and around its ridges. She pulled a stray clump of hair off it and shook it onto the ground, trying not to look back over at the Courser's body.

"Yes," she said. "This - this is it. It must be."

"So what do we do with it?" he asked.

"I have to get it decoded," she said haltingly.

"And who do we go to for that?" he asked. "Our scribes could take a look at it, of course, but this level of technology may be - more than they're used to."

"I - have no idea," she said, her eyes still fixed on this chip in the palm of her hand. She could feel her heart fluttering in her chest. "I don't know, I don't-"

"It's alright," said Danse, cautiously. "While this is a priority, we don't need to move on it immediately."

"What?" Her head jerked up. "Yes we do. Of course we do."

"We're making progress far in advance of Brotherhood projections," he said. "If you need some time to take a break-"

"It's fine," she said. "I'm fine." She walked back over to her power armour and yanked the damaged arm off the frame. It crashed to the ground in a thick black cloud. Flakes of ash drifted in the air like snow. She stepped back into the armour, her peripheral vision catching the light coming in through her missing armour.

"Doctor Amari," said Ella. "She might know something about what to do with it. She knew what to do with Kellogg's implant, maybe she could do something like that with Nick?" Her voice sounded hesitant, painfully unsure in her own ears.

"If that's what you think is best," said Danse.

She looked over. His expression was neutral.

"Alright," she said. "Thanks."

They walked back down through the floors of the silent building, their steps echoing off the empty halls. They passed corpses, scattered limbs, discarded weapons, turret. As she closed the Greenetech Genetics door behind her, she craned her neck to look up. They'd turned the building into a tomb.


	13. Where I Ought To Be

Happy Halloween! I've always been legitimately terrible at following the Freedom Trail (in game and in real life?!) so this is almost a reasonable run.

* * *

Ella stared at herself in her tiny shard of mirror. Her skin was pale, and the dark circles under her eyes were a bruise-coloured purple. She lifted her eyeliner brush in one hand, but paused. Her hand was shaking. She lowered it slowly, putting the brush down.

She caught her own eye in the mirror by accident. She hadn't realised she'd been trying to avoid her own gaze. Her eyes were hollow and dazed, desperate and afraid.

"Are you ready to go?" Danse asked.

She tore her eyes away from the mirror. "Yeah," she said.

He took a second glance at her. "You're not going to put on your - eye makeup?" he asked.

"I - no," she said. "There's - not really any point."

He looked at her for a long moment, sharply.

She looked away.

"Alright," he said, at last. "What's our next move? Goodneighbor?"

"Via Fen-" she grimaced, cutting herself off. "Via Diamond City. I want to pick up Nick. Dr Amari might be able to get the chip to talk to his - software. And if not, well, if anyone can track down someone to decode this thing, he can."

"I've told you before, I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone with that - thing," he said. "I don't trust it."

Ella stifled a sigh. "I know, " she said, running through a mental list of reasons to find the one most appropriate to the Brotherhood. "And I appreciate your concern. But it's fine. He's fine. There's no evidence he's a danger to anyone. And there's nothing wrong with using technology to achieve your aims."

He frowned. "That's not just technology," he said. "That's technology with a mind of it's own. A monstrosity."

"And in the wrong hands I'm sure that would be dangerous," she said. "But he's with me, so - it's fine. It's a manageable threat, if you want to call it that. If you don't trust him, at least trust my judgement."

"If - that's what you think is best," he said reluctantly.

She let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping. "I won't be gone long," she said. She hesitated, wanting to say something more but wasn't sure what. "I - I'll come find you as soon as I'm back."

His eyes were stern. "I need to take a trip back to the Prydwen," he said. "You should join me when you're finished. Do you have enough vertibird signal grenades?"

"I've got - three," she said, smiling faintly. "That should be enough to get me there, right?"

He frowned. "Use them carefully," he said. "If you run out, we can't help you."

"I will," she said. "I- I'll be back soon."

* * *

The morning was thick with fog, the sun's early rays casting a pink glow as it scattered through the air. Ella walked into Diamond City alone.

Nick's assistant''s eyes widened in alarm as she stepped into his office. "Ms Graham?" she said, standing up. "Please, sit down." She offered Ella her chair.

"Mrs," said Ella, dully. "I mean, Ella, but Mrs."

She blushed. "I'm so sorry. Mrs Graham. Can I get you anything?"

"Start with a double scotch," said Nick, stepping out of the back room. "Christ, Ella, what the hell happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, rubbing at her forehead. She pulled the chip from her pocket and held it out to him. "I need to get this translated. Decoded."

He took it gently in his metal hand and examined it carefully. "Is this what I think it is?" he asked, glancing back towards her. "Did getting it do this to you?"

"Do what?" she asked, giving him a crooked grin. "You're being dramatic."

He handed her a glass. She gratefully accepted, welcoming the burn of the alcohol as it slid down her throat. She stared into her glass and tried not to remember the way the Courser's skin split under her knife.

"I was going to make a joke about you switching out your dance partners," he said. "But - you look like you haven't slept in a week."

"I dreamed about Shaun last night," she said. "When he was a baby. Just holding him. That was it. That was the whole dream. I remember what he smelled like."

"We're going to get him back," he said.

"Do you believe that?" she asked, looking up. "Really believe that?"

"I do," he said. "And I think it's important that you believe it too."

She sighed. "Okay," she said. "Alright. Do you have a cigarette?"

Nick reached for his pockets, and lit the cigarette before giving it to her. It tasted stale and harsh, but she swallowed the cough it gave her and held it tightly in her trembling hands.

"Did you ever see it before?" she asked Nick. "Woman loses her baby, he turns up fine ten years down the track?"

"Twice," he said. "Usually with less cryogenics, though."

She smiled wearily. "Tell me about them."

"Well, in the first one, a woman had convinced everyone she knew that she was pregnant when she really wasn't; friends and family, her husband, but what she'd really done is walk into a maternity wing, pick up a baby, and walk out again. The 'father' had a DNA test done when the kid was about eleven because he'd been thinking for a while the kid didn't look like him at all. Parents got him back."

"What was that like for the parents?" she asked. "The real parents."

"Difficult," he admitted. "Kid had bonded with his new family. Cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. But that's all I know. Police involvement ended there."

"What about the second one?" Ella asked.

He hesitated. "I - probably shouldn't have brought that one up."

Ella winced. "What happened?" she asked, half-dreading the answer.

Nick sighed. "Little girl. Snatched out of her backyard at two, escaped at fifteen, or thereabouts. Not twenty minutes from her home the entire time."

"Escaped," Ella repeated, her voice cracking.

"Perp shot himself before she could lead us back to his house," he said bitterly. "Lucky for him."

"Jesus," she whispered.

"Yeah," he said. "Anyway, let's see what the doctor has to say."

* * *

Amari wouldn't take the chip, instead leaning close to examine it in Ella's palm. "Completely out of my realm of expertise, I'm afraid. The only people I think may be able to do something with it is the Railroad."

"I was expecting that name to come up sooner or later," said Nick. "Where do we find them?"

"Wait, who?" asked Ella, frowning. "I've never heard of them."

"The Railroad is an organisation that helps to smuggle synths out of the Commonwealth."

"Like, the Underground Railroad?" she asked. "That's a, uh, pretty big analogy they've got going on there."

Nick cast her a sideways glance, and she pressed her lips together.

"All I know is that the way to find them is to follow the Freedom Trail," continued Amari.

"The Freedom Trail?" Ella's frown deepened. "I haven't done that since I was a kid. Can you just skip to the end and go straight to Bunker Hill?"

"I believe," said the doctor. "That there is a strong emphasis on following the Trail from Boston Common."

"I feel like they're conflating the Revolutionary War and the Civil War with their name and location choices," said Ella. "Still. Thanks for the tip."

"They don't teach history here like they used to," murmured Nick, as they left the Memory Den.

She smiled. It felt alien on her face.

"That's what I like to see," he said. "You're at your best when pointing out historical anachronisms."

She wrinkled her nose ruefully. "I have a real problem with picking at unimportant details," she said.

"No such thing for a lawyer," he said. "So where does this trail start? I've heard of it, of course, but I never got around to walking it."

"Boston Common," she said. "It's not very long, you can do it in half a day or so. Although I don't know what kind of state it'll be in. We've probably crossed over the Trail a few times since we've been out. Things look a lot - different, now."

They made their way downtown.

Boston Common was eerily silent in the mist. Vibrant green trees and lush grass had been replaced with dried branches and bare earth. She sighed at the memory of hot summer days, barefoot in the grass.

"There's something in the water," she said, peering through the wrought iron bars at a huddled mass half-submerged in the murky pond. "It's showing up on my display."

"Alive?" he asked.

"I - think so?" she said.

"How big is it?"

"It's pretty big," she said. "It looks like it's curled up, too."

"How about we leave that alone?" he suggested.

"It looks like it's tangled up in a - swan boat," she said. " And some branche, or something. Is it stuck?"

"It's probably a bad idea to find out," said Nick. "Trust me on this."

She pushed herself away from the bars. "Yeah, I'm not in any hurry to get in that water," she said.

They gave the pond a wide berth, circling around the outside of the park.

They stopped at the plaque at the beginning of the Freedom Trail. A tour guide robot shuffled out of its pod nearby. Ella ignored it. The words "at journey's end follow freedom's lantern" were daubed in blue on a battered plywood board propped up against the fountain.

"Is that a Paul Revere reference?" she asked, tilting her head. "It has to be, right? His house is on the Freedom Trail. And so is the Old North Church, where they actually hung the signal lantern. That'd make more sense."

"I really think we need to listen to Amari's advice about following the Trail," said Nick. "She knows more than she's letting on."

She sighed. "Okay. I just don't want to be out here any longer than I have to be, that's all."

"You and me both," said Nick. "What's this?"

Nick crouched by the trail marker at the beginning of the trail. He touched his finger to the metal inscription.

She bent down to see what he was looking at. The number seven was painted on the marker in red, along with brackets around the letter A'.

"It's a code," said Nick.

"Oh, Christ," she said. "There are like sixteen stops on this thing. Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah." He reached into his trenchcoat pocket and brought out a notepad and pen. He scribbled the fragment of code on the paper and dropped it back in his pocket.

"So, which way?"

"The next stop is the Massachusetts State House, right over there," she said, pointing to the other side of the park.

It was a short walk up the street, following the narrow red brick path.

Ella looked up at the ruins of the building. "That dome up there's covered in gold leaf. Though it looks a little worn through, in places." She took a step inside the ruined gates. "And there used to be a statue of a president over to the left. One of the 20th century ones, I think. Can't remember which one."

"Wonder who took him," said Nick. "This one is - four and an L."

"Okay," she said. "Next stop should be a - church on the corner back the way we came, I think. And then further around there's a graveyard. Full of the, uh, celebrities of the Revolutionary War."

"Celebrities?" he asked.

"Boston has always had a fairly close relationship with its dead," she said. "We're used to being cheek to cheek with our burial grounds. They're part of our history, they're part of who we are. Reminders of how we're all going to die some day. That's what all the skulls are for." She glanced at Nick and shrugged. "The Puritans were weird about religious iconography."

Nick walked up to a huge stone obelisk in the middle of the park with the name 'Franklin' chiselled into its smooth surface. He turned back to Ella. "Is that Benjamin Franklin?"

"His parents," she said. "He put it up, though. And we've got John Hancock over to the left, and Paul Revere up the back." She smiled. "I feel like a tour guide. I had a friend at university who had a part-time job, where she dressed up like she was from the 1770s and taught tourists about Boston revolutionary history," she said. "I feel like that's what I'm doing right now." She paused. Actually, maybe that's what I'm doing all the time. Except I'm dressed up like I'm from the 2070s and teaching people about pre-nuclear war history."

Nick winced. "Don't think about it like that," he said.

"How should I think about it?" she asked.

"Just - two friends discussing the past," he offered.

She smiled ruefully. "If you like," she said, looking down. "You know, thanks. There's not really anyone else who I can discuss this with. And I know it's kind of - weird for you anyway, so - thank you. I appreciate it."

"Well, if it helps you, I don't care," he said. "I'm used to it by now, anyway. And I know it's a hell of an adjustment period. Even if you do get to keep your own body."

She smiled. "Thanks. We should keep moving. This way."

They made their way to the next trail marker, outside the Granary Burial Grounds.

"What's this one?" she asked. "Uh - two - A. Oh my god, how long is this going to be?"

"We're about to head into super mutant territory," said Nick. "Are you ready?"

"I guess," she said, "Although I'm wondering what kind of person joins the Railroad if they can get through this trail without getting themselves killed."

The trail ran into a pile of debris and vanished. Nick looked around. "So where now?"

"I - don't know." She grimaced, trying to spot a flash of red. "There's the Old State House, over in Goodneighbor. I feel like I'm missing something, but that's the next one I can think of."

"Then let's go," he said. "It's a trail after all, isn't it? Everything should be along the same route."

She was about to walk into Goodneighbor when Nick called out.

"Hey, is this what you were after?" Nick reached for his notepad as he bent over a trail marker. "Six - O."

She turned back. "How did you see- how did I miss that?"

He shrugged. "Guess you're just a little preoccupied. It doesn't matter, that's what partners are for."

"The buildings don't - don't make sense any more," she said, turning to try and reorient herself. "I don't under- understand."

She jumped when Nick laid a hand gently on her shoulder. "You still with me?" he asked.

"Y-yes," she said. "I'm - let's just keep going."

The doorway of the Old Corner Bookstore was lit up, even in the daylight. A lantern sat burning next to the stoop, and an old neon 'open' sign in the window glowed dimly..

"Three - I," she said. "I think this was a, uh, frozen yoghurt shop last time I was here. Changed hands a number of times since it burned down in the 18th Century, you see."

Nick looked down at his notepad.

"What have we got?" she asked.

"Well, assuming the numbers correspond to the position of the letter within the code, and acknowledging we don't know how long it is just yet..." He held out the page to reveal '_AIL_OA' in neat capitals.

She cast a dubious glance towards him. "Does this-" she began hesitantly. "Look like it's going to spell-"

"Railroad?" suggested Nick. "Sure looks like it. Looks like security isn't too high on their list of priorities."

Ella frowned. "We're going to see the Railroad and their password is railroad. At least it's not 'password'."

Faneuil Hall was crawling with super mutants and their dogs. Burning chairs were stacked in a heap in front of the wooden double doors, and bags of human flesh were left lying on the ground and hanging from old street lights. The trail marker was in the middle of it all, too close to the patrolling super mutants to get to without being seen.

"Uh - maybe I could just try and see the marker through my scope?" she suggested.

"Give it a try," he said. "Not too sure we want to get any closer. There's a super mutant over there with a little blinking light on his wrist I'm not interested in getting any further acquainted with."

"That's racial profiling," she said, giving him a sidelong smile.

He laughed darkly. "Sure is. Ruled constitutional in December '75 and never overturned," he said. "Which was - a great injustice. Guess it doesn't matter, now."

She peered through her scope. "I - I can't see what the number is from here," she said. "But it looks like it's pointing at an R."

"One or a five?" he asked.

"Seriously, can't tell," she said, squinting harder. "My night vision's throwing off the colours. Let's just note down the R and circle all the way round to Paul Revere's house."

They gave the super mutants a wide berth, dodging through the back alleys of Boston's North End. Tattered green, white and red bunting still hung festively across the streets.

"Used to be some great Italian restaurants up here," said Nick.

"Oh my God," said Ella. "The one that didn't take bookings and made you pay cash was amazing."

"The one with the queue out the door at all hours?" asked Nick. "Never had the patience for the wait."

"You just had to show up for dinner at 4:30," she said, shaking her head. "So inconvenient, but so worth it."

They stopped outside Paul Revere's house, a weathered wooden building with its second floor mostly blown off. The Freedom Trail marker was set into the ground outside the front door. "Eight - D," said Ella, almost in disbelief. "It's absolutely railroad. Does the Institute not spend a lot of time on the ground? This isn't difficult to figure out."

"Couldn't say," said Nick, looking up.

Ella followed his gaze. In the dimming evening light, she could see there was a light in the steeple of the Old North Church, just visible over the rooftops a couple of streets over. "Alright," she said. "Very - thematic. They're committed to it, if nothing else."

"There's two lanterns," said Nick. "Doesn't that mean something?"

"One if by land and two if by sea," murmured Ella. "That, uh, means the British are going to cross the river by boat on the way to Concord. God knows what it means in this context."

"Come on," said Nick, starting towards the church. "This has been dragging itself out for long enough."

He paused by the marker in front of the church's back door. "And number one is an R," he said. "As if we needed any more confirmation. I'm not sure we got all of them, but I think we got the gist of it just fine, don't you?"

"Yeah," she said, slowly. The church loomed black against the darkening sky.

"Let's not keep them waiting," he said, pushing open the door.

She followed him into the darkness inside.


	14. I Can't Stay Mad at You

Many apologies for the delay in updating! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years :)

* * *

The catacombs of the Old North Church were dry and still, the air silent and unmoving. Every step they took seemed to echo off the narrow stone walls. They made their way through the twisting tunnels and dodging skeletons spilling out of holes set into the the walls, until the trail abruptly stopped at a door. There was a bright red wire leading from a hole drilled in the wall to the final Freedom Trail marker.

They stared at the copper sheen of the plaque in the torchlight. The inscription read 'The Freedom Trail Boston'.

"Do you think it matters which version of the each letter we use?" asked Ella dubiously, tracing her fingers over the two letter 'R's on the ring.

"I don't know," said Nick. "I haven't been writing those down. It wouldn't be that hard to brute force even if it does, though. There's only three maximum of each letter."

She put her fingers on the inscription ring tentatively. It turned under her hands, easier than she'd expected, as she carefully lined up the letters. The door grated open to reveal almost complete darkness beyond.

A single candle burnt on a ledge in front of her, before the stone floor suddenly dropped off. She couldn't see beyond the flickering pool of light.

She hesitated before taking a step forward.

Light suddenly flooded the room. Ella stumbled back, unable to see.

"Stop right there," a woman said. "And think about your next move very carefully."

Ella raised a hand, shielding her eyes from the high-powered industrial floodlight. Three figures stood on the ledge opposite.

"You've gone to a lot of trouble to get here," the woman continued. "But before we can continue, I need you to tell me who the hell you are."

"I - what?" Ella asked, heart still pounding. "Are you s- are you surprised I'm here? Is this how you process everyone who comes through this door?""

"Answer the question."

Nick put a hand on her shoulder. "Easy," he said, his voice low. They frowned, momentarily distracted at the sight of him.

She paused for a moment, trying to keep her breathing steady. "Ella Graham," she said. "I'm looking for the Railroad."

"Who told you how to contact us?" the woman asked.

As Ella's vision returned, she could see the woman had red hair. She seemed to be the leader To the left was a shorter woman, wearing a heavy jacket and holding a minigun, and to the right stood a man holding a weapon that looked like a pipe pistol.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Ella asked, incredulous. "There's literally a trail outside with the password, which is also your name, written on it. I thought this was the entire point. Do you not expect people to find you this way?"

The woman to the left hefted her minigun on her hip. "Who told you where we were?" she asked.

"There's a sign out there," said Ella, gesturing behind her. "Maybe you've seen it? Bright blue paint. I'm pretty sure people who weren't even looking for the Railroad could find the Railroad."

"Ella-" Nick began. His voice had a note of caution.

"And why were you looking for the Railroad?" asked the leader.

"I've got a Courser chip that needs decoding," Ella said. "I need to know how to recreate the signal it puts out so I can get into the Institute."

It was the first thing she'd said that seemed to phase them.

"How do you know what a Courser chip is?" asked the woman in the centre.

"Because an ex-Institute scientist told me about them." she said, fighting the urge to take a step back. "Could you put your guns down, please?"

"Not a chance," said the woman with the minigun. "Do you expect us to believe you took a Courser on and won?"

"Do you want me to give it to you?" Ella's voice was rising in pitch as she battled to stay calm. "It's still got bits of brain on it if you don't believe me."

Nick put his hand on her back, lightly. "Take it easy," he said.

She let out a long breath. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears; feel it fluttering in her chest.

"It's okay," Nick said, his voice low. "We're going to be fine."

A man ducked out of the inky blackness behind the floodlights. "You always start the party without me." The bright lights glinted off his sunglasses.

"This isn't the _best_ time," the leader began.

"Sure it is," he said. "Looks like I'm just in time for the welcome party. This is the welcome party, right? No offense, but you guys aren't great at party planning. The atmosphere in this place is terrible."

"This isn't a party, Deacon," said the leader flatly.

"Uh, well, why not?" he asked. "The guest of honour's here, isn't she?"

"You know who this is?"

"Uh, _yeah_ ," he said. "Who doesn't?" She's serious about the Courser chip, too. Fought a whole unit of Gunners to get to it. And freed the synth they were using as bait."

The leader lowered her weapon, and after a moment the others did as well.

"My name is Desdemona, and I'm the leader of the Railroad," she said. She gestured to her sides. "This is Glory, and this is Drummer Boy."

"What, like Othello?" asked Ella, frowning. "I mean, okay. Whatever. I'm Ella."

"Deacon." The man in the sunglasses stepped forward. "So, now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, let's get down to business."

She stayed where she was. "What were you going to do if I'd planned on shooting my way in?"

"You've been under surveillance since you started on the Freedom Trail," said Desdemona. "If we didn't want you to find us, you wouldn't have."

Ella stared. "In that case, why put on a show? Why the guns? Are you just trying to intimidate me? Impress me?"

Desdemona sighed. "Our work means we have to be cautious," she said. "Maybe too cautious, sometimes. We rely on the understanding of the people who want to work with us."

"Well - how do you know I'm not an Institute spy, then?" Ella asked. "I'm travelling around with a synth that looks a lot like some of theirs."

"What, old Nicky Valentine?" asked Deacon. "Furthest thing you could get from an Institute synth, everyone knows that."

"I don't believe we've met," said Nick, dubiously.

"Well, no, not formally," said Deacon. "But you're a popular guy."

"Is that right?" Nick asked.

"Sure is," Deacon said enthusiastically. "Haven't met anyone yet with a bad word about you. Quite an accomplishment, in Diamond City."

"I'd explain how I managed it," Nick said. "But maybe you know that already."

"There's that detective instinct in action," said Deacon. "Now, Des, are these kids allowed in? They've got some pretty solid stuff."

Desdemona frowned. "We have the technology to decode the Courser chip," she said. "But we need something in return."

"That's usually how it goes," Ella said warily. "What do you need?"

"We keep the chip," Desdemona said. "After we give you the data."

Ella glanced at Nick. "That - seems fair," she said, uncertainly. "We don't need the chip after we get the translated data, do we?"

"That's how I understood it," said Nick. "I think you're good to give it to them. They might be able to get something useful out of it."

She turned back to Desdemona. "Alright," she said. "You can have it. After I get the data."

"Thank you," said Desdemona. "Follow me." She turned, and led them down a narrow staircase that opened up suddenly into a brightly-lit crypt.

Coffins sat half-open on the floor, being used as tables. Ella could see the the grinning yawn of a skull in a slant of light below one cracked lid. She quickly looked away.

There were more people than she'd been expecting, hunched over workbenches, carefully scraping gunpowder into bullets or grinding up ingredients for medicine. Spare electronics and coils of wiring were crammed into shelves haphazardly, along with ammunition and cigarettes. Bricks from the central pillars were scattered across the floor. A shopping cart stood in one corner.

Glory followed them closely, minigun clasped tightly in her hands.

Desdemona led them to a man standing by what looked like a 2030s-style retro computer terminal. He was wearing overalls and a tight cloth cap with a series of lenses attached to it. A makeshift toolbelt hung around his waist, with a hammer, duct tape, screwdrivers, and various wrenches dangling from it.

"This is Tinker Tom," she said. "If anyone can decode your chip, he can."

Ella forced an unconvincing smile. "Nice to meet you," she said, holding out the chip.

"Nice," he said, taking it. He slid down the lenses to get a better view. "Very nice. It's been a while since I've seen one of these."

He plugged the Courser chip into a device linked to his computer. "What are you looking for here, exactly?"

"I - don't know?" said Ella. "I was told I just need to have it decoded."

"Just a dump of the actual code on the chip?" he asked. "I can do that."

"Yeah. I guess. Thanks."

After a moment, he handed her a holotape. "This is it," he said. "Good luck with it."

She looked at the tape in her hand. It looked just like any other. Nothing special about it at all.

"it would be good to work with you more," said Desdemona. "If you truly did kill a Courser."

"I - seriously?" asked Ella, looking up. "You were just saying how much you didn't trust us. Me."

"Sure," said Desdemona continued. "All we ask is that if you find anything helpful, you need to share it with us first."

"I - I'll let you know," said Ella.

Desdemona took a step closer. "I think - we might have future use for you," she said. "But I need to ask you one question."

"Alright," said Ella, dubiously. "Ask away."

"The Railroad seeks to free synths from the Institute's slavery," she said. "So my question is this: would you risk your life to save another, even if they were a synth?" Desdemona's brown eyes were piercing.

Ella paused before answering. "There aren't many people I'd risk my life for, except for my son," she replied. "Anything else is on a case-by-case basis."

"That's not a definitive answer," said Desdemona. "Yes or no?"

Ella raised an eyebrow. "Then, no," she said sharply. "I can't give you a blanket assurance that I'll risk my life for literally anyone in literally any situation. That's ridiculous. Sorry."

Desdemona studied her for a moment before responding. "I see," she said coolly. "In that case, our business is concluded. It will be best for both of us if you do not return."

Ella suppressed a juvenile impulse to roll her eyes, and instead offered a frosty smile. "Thanks again for your help."

Nick followed her back out the way they'd came, past the cluttered crypt floor and back through the narrow entryway.

She heard footsteps behind her as they approached the now-dimmed floodlights, and turned.

"Hey," Deacon said. "Heard Des give you the third degree."

"It's fine," Ella said. "Got to know who you're dealing with."

He sucked air through his teeth. "She's pretty hard on the newbies. I mean, that's not an easy question to answer on the spot, you know? Of course you know."

"I'm just grateful for the chip data," said Ella, taking a step towards the exit.

Deacon dodged in front of her. "I mean, Des is the leader, but - she can be a little harsh. We've lost a lot of people, lately. We could really use someone like you. Like, really."

"I don't know if I'm really what you need," said Ella. "To be honest."

"Des can be a little - unrealistic," he said. "You know, she doesn't spend a whole lot of time in the field. Things are different out there. I get it."

Ella narrowed her eyes as she looked at him, more closely this time. "I've seen you before, haven't I?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he asked, leaning forward with a smile. "Where?"

"In the Memory Den," she said. "You had sunglasses on while you were in one of the pods. And no hair. But the sunglasses were why I remember you."

"Oh yeah, I get it," he said. "Breaks immersion. I'll remember that for next time. Is that the only place you've seen me?"

She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "There were others?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "A few. But don't feel bad. You got more than most people do. But back to the Railroad - you got any questions that need answering?"

"Which one's Harriet Tubman?" she asked.

"Ooh," he said. "That would have been such a good codename. I'll have to pick that one next time. Or you could have it."

"I'm not sure that would be appropriate, really," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, but seriously," he said. "Reality is, we need people like you."

"People like me?" she asked.

"People who are prepared to take a Courser down if they have to," he said.

"I'm not in any hurry to take on another one," she said. "I'm not sure this whole revolutionary cell thing is a great fit for my lifestyle."

"I get it," he said. "I do. If things change, though-" He shrugged. "Well, we'll keep your resume on file."

"You - _what_?" she asked. "Resumes are still a - thing?"

Deacon laughed. "Nah, " he said. "But I figured you might appreciate a familiar cultural reference."

"The fact you seem to have a grasp on 21st century recruitment processes is actually more disconcerting than anything else," she said. "But okay, I get it. Thanks."

"See you round," he said, standing in the doorway as Ella and Nick turned back towards the darkness.

"Yeah," Ella said. "Maybe."


	15. Didn't I

Just before I start I want to say a huge thank you to that one anonymous reviewer who left me an incredibly sweet review on my last chapter. I'd like to reply individually but I can't :(

* * *

They made it back to Diamond City before night closed in on them, through the winding cluttered streets of the North End.

"Why don't we stop for a drink before we call it a night?" asked Nick, as they walked down towards the marketplace. Grey dust covered her shoes and jeans almost up to her knees.

"Sure," she said.

The Dugout Inn was dingy and dark, lit with flickering fluorescent lights highlighting the peeling paint and curling linoleum. Stale cigarette smoke hung in the air. A pair of mounted brahmin heads above the bar seemed to watch mournfully as they sat down at a rickety patio table behind a derelict coffee machine.

"You're always taking me out for drinks after traumatic events," she said, trying to smile.

"Well, I don't want to give you too many hints about my life before the war," he said. "But I always thought this was an effective way of relaxing after a rough day."

She shifted uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair. "If you worked on the Eddie Winter case I couldn't really blame you for it," she said.

A girl in a torn pink skirt and an almost-matching scarf brought over a bottle and two glasses. The bottle was unmarked. Ella wasn't sure what it was.

"You doing okay?" Nick asked, as he poured the dark liquid into the glasses. "I was a little worried back there."

She picked up her glass. It smelled halfway between rum and bourbon. "Yeah?" she asked, half-smiling. "Did you think I was going to try something?"

"For a second I did, yeah," he said. "Seen a lot of people lose their cool when they're being held at gunpoint. Some run, some start shooting."

"Did you think I was going to be a runner or a shooter?" she asked, watching him over the rim of her glass.

"I don't know," he said. "Never dealt with someone quite like you before."

"What," she asked. "You mean you didn't deal a lot with white collar stuff?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Never thought of you as a white collar criminal. You got something to confess?"

She laughed. "No, I just meant you must have dealt with a ton of people like me. Everyone was like me. Here's where I don't belong."

"That's not what I mean," said Nick. "You're very - what's the word for it? Opaque. You don't like to show what you're really thinking."

"Old lawyer habit, I guess," she said, uneasily. "I didn't think I'd been - unforthcoming."

"Doesn't do to be too forthcoming in this world," said Nick.

She looked down at the table again. "Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Of course I do," he said. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"A-about that question Desdemona asked me," she began.

Nick smiled wryly. "You're wondering if I took offense?" he asked. "No. You were pretty clear about what you meant by that."

"It's not about synths," she said. "I don't care if people are synths. I don't want to die for anyone."

"I get it," he said. "You don't have to explain this to me."

"I don't want you to think I'm a bad person," she said, staring into her glass. "But maybe I am."

"Not wanting to risk your life doesn't make you a bad person," he said. "It makes you a normal person."

She finished her glass, then reached for the bottle to fill it again.

"Before the war," she began, then stopped. "There was - more I could have done," she said. "When - the government was rounding up the Chinese into camps. I didn't do anything."

She could feel Nick's eyes on her, but he stayed silent.

"I could have," she continued. "But I didn't. I thought - I wasn't a civil rights lawyer, or an immigration lawyer. What could I do?" She picked up her glass, held it in her hands for a moment, then put it down again. "I always knew that was disingenuous, though. There's always something you could do. But - I didn't."

"Why not?" asked Nick. His voice was neutral, questioning, without a hint of accusation.

"I didn't want my name on a government watch list," she said. "I didn't want Nate to get court-martialled, or picked up in a truck one day and never brought back. I wanted my family to have this happy little suburban life. I wanted everything those people didn't get. And it was easier - just to avoid it. To ignore it."

She picked at the peeling formica on the table. "I don't know if it would have changed anything," she said. "Even if I could go back now I - I don't know how to prevent the bombs from being launched. Maybe everything would have turned out the same. But that doesn't mean I couldn't have made - a difference. For someone. A few more days with their family. Does that matter? I think it does." She shrugged. "But would I have given up a few more days with my family so someone else could get a few more days with theirs?"

She stared into the glass, watching the black liquid ripple. "They must have been so scared," she said, almost inaudibly.

"Ella-" Nick began, leaning forward. "I - the old Nick - worked for the Boston Police Department. Not with the unit who worked with the military on domestic security, but - everyone there knew what was happening. I think that - those memories - are part of the reason I think it's so important to help people today."

Ella looked down. "I just wanted - a normal life," she said. "As unrealistic as that sounds." She wrapped her fingers around her glass. "Maybe that's not possible."

"So what do you want to do?" Nick asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I need to keep things moving, but - I don't think I can face the Glowing Sea again right now."

"Do you want to spend the night at my office?" he asked, gently. "There are beds. You - you don't have to be alone right now. We can go back to Sanctuary Hills in the morning. Just to regroup."

She shook her head. "I think I'd rather stay here," she admitted. "It's fine. I just need to decompress a little. I'll come past your office in the morning."

Nick stood up. "If you're sure."

"It's fine." She smiled. "Surely you've got some other cases to catch up on?"

"Nothing that needs to be done urgently," he said. "I deal with a lot of cold cases. You're not taking time away from anyone else."

"I'll be fine," she said. "See you tomorrow."

She watched him go, then stood up, her aching muscles protesting. She counted out ten caps for the night and collapsed onto the bare single bed in the corner of her allocated room.

Her head was spinning, but she kept her eyes closed until sleep overtook her like a crashing wave.

It was mid morning when Ella woke up, disoriented at the unfamiliar walls. Her limbs were heavy and stiff as she sat up slowly and walked outside.

The sickly green damask wallpaper in the hallway outside seemed to waver in front of her eyes.

"Hair of the dog?" yelled Vadim as she stumbled past. She waved him away and shuffled out the door.

The sun was already high in the sky as she stepped outside. Ella followed the uneven wooden path to the back alleys of Diamond City, where Nick's offices were. Nick was sitting at the desk, a manila folder open in front of him, pages spread in a fan.

"Morning," he said. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough," she said. "Did you catch up on all your cases?"

"Yeah," he said, sweeping the pages back into the folder with a practiced movement. "Had a couple of tips come in over the past few weeks that might go somewhere. And something strange seems to be happening in a little town up north. Covenant. You heard of it? Lot of missing people with that as their last known destination." He closed the folder.

She shook her head. "That's not a pre-war name, is it?"

"Don't think so," he said, standing up. "But it's nothing I need to follow up on right now, though. You ready to leave?"

The sun was high overhead as they left the shelter of the stadium, and the day was oppressively hot as they worked their way to the northwest.

* * *

She felt a flood of relief as the minuteman statue came into view, rifle raised to the sky, as they rounded the corner to Sanctuary Hills. The late afternoon sun cast its shadow long over the Old North Bridge.

Danse met them as they rounded the corner into the neighbourhood.

"You should be wearing your power armour," he said disapprovingly.

She looked up at him, holding back a sigh. "I - it hurts my arms," she said, running a finger up the back of her arm. "Here. What's this?"

"Your tricep," he said, frowning. "It shouldn't. You'd probably benefit from an adjustment. I'll make sure Ingram takes a look at it next time we're on the Prydwen."

"Th-thank you," she said.

"So what's our next move?"

She glanced at Nick. "We - have to go back to the Glowing Sea," she said. "To see the scientist. I just - it's going to be difficult."

"Why do you say that?" he asked, his brows lowering.

"It's - a difficult journey," she said, gazing towards the south. "I'm not looking forward to walking out there again."

"We could take a vertibird," said Danse.

Ella turned to look at him blankly. "We - can fly a vertibird into that?" she asked. "I just- assumed it would be too dangerous."

"As long as you have the exact coordinates," he said. "Radiation causes some interference with the navigation equipment, but for simple drop off missions it will be more than adequate."

She stared at him. "We don't have to walk there," she said, half asking it, like a question.

"Haylen mentioned you'd had some difficulty with the Glowing Sea last time you were there," he said. "She - told me to keep an eye on you."

Ella could imagine Haylen using those exact words. "That's - really thoughtful of her," she said.

"She cares a lot about the team," said Danse.

Ella smiled. "Yeah," she said. "She does. She's a sweetheart."

Danse frowned. "I'm concerned about the level of support you're getting," he said.

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Is that right?"

Danse turned to look at him like he hadn't noticed he was standing there. Ella's hands clenched into fists of their own volition.

"That is correct," Danse said, turning his attention back to Ella. "I recognise that this mission puts you under a lot of pressure," he said. "As the team's commander, it's my job to make sure it functions as effectively as possible."

"Are you saying I'm not - doing my job?" she asked.

He paused for a moment. "No," he said. "Not at all. Just that you've got the Brotherhood behind you," he said. "And all its resources. And you're not taking advantage of that."

"I feel - very new," she said, self-consciously.

"You are new, but you're essential for the Brotherhood's current course of action," he said. "That means we need to take care of you. If you're having trouble, I'd recommend you talk to Knight-Captain Cade."

"Is that an order?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

Danse frowned. "No," he said, after a moment. "Just a recommendation."

"I-I'll think about it," she said. "After we get this out of the way. Is that - alright with you?"

"You need to ask permission?" Nick asked dryly.

She turned to look at him. "Not really that helpful," she said, through clenched teeth.

"I wouldn't expect a synth to recognise the complexities of military hierarchies," said Danse. He turned to Ella. "Regardless, it's your decision. Something to keep in mind."

"Thank you," she said. "I - I will."

"Are you prepared for the trip?" he asked.

She turned back towards the garage. "My power armour isn't in great shape," she said, heading towards it.

"You haven't fixed that arm yet," Danse observed. "You can't go to the Glowing Sea if your suit isn't sealed."

"Yeah," she said, running a finger over the charred metal. Flakes of it came off under her fingers. She poked it experimentally, and winced when her finger went straight through the weakened metal. "I'm going to need to scrap this entirely, so I was planning on pulling a replacement from one of the other sets I've got lying around."

He nodded. "It won't be as effective without the lead reinforcement, but the environmental seal should keep the worst of the radiation out." He looked up at the sky. "Are you ready to move out today? We can be back before sunset, if we're careful."

"S-sure," said Ella.

He waited for her to hurriedly cannibalise an older set of power armour and replace the damaged arm, then pulled the tab in the base of the vertibird signalling grenade, and tossed it into the widest part of the street.

She watched the metallic red smoke drift upwards in a thick red pillar towards the sky, and turned towards the southwest to watch for the path of the answering vertibird.

Birds scattered from the trees as the vertibird came in for landing. Ella raised her hand to shield her eyes against the cloud of dust that billowed up from the ground

"Do you want to take the minigun?" asked Danse, one hand on the vertibird.

"There's not a lot that'll be able to hurt us from a distance out in the Glowing Sea," she said, but she hopped in, grasping hold of the mounted minigun handles tightly. "There's deathclaws, radscorpions, ghouls. Maybe a bug or two that might be able to shoot something towards us." But minimal threat, I think."

"It's best to be ready for anything," said Danse.

The vertibird flew low over the Glowing Sea to keep visibility over the terrain. Ella watched the broken roads, transfixed, as they flew over the faint footprints of house foundations and the remnants of shattered trees. Watching the landscape beneath them move from blasted neighborhoods at the outskirts, through dead forest, and finally to lakes of glass and pools of glowing liquid was no easier from above than it had been walking across it.

They arrived at the coordinates she'd given to the pilot, sinking out of the sunlight into a thick fog of yellow. The vertibird touched down on a flat area of land, surrounded by bubbling yellow liquid.

"Do you want to stay with the vertibird?" Ella asked Danse. "Make sure our way out is protected?" Her voice rattled through the speakers.

"And leave you alone in there with a super mutant?" he said. "That's unacceptable."

She clasped her fingers around the power armour hand controls tightly. "Are you going to - be okay with being around him?" she asked hesitantly.

"As long as it doesn't make trouble for us, I won't make trouble for it," he said.

"He won't," said Ella. "He still - he's not completely a super mutant yet. He still thinks like a human."

"But he's not human."

She closed her eyes, behind her helmet. "Yeah," said Ella. "All right. Let's go."

He followed her into the cave, unholstering his laser rifle.

"There's a turret up ahead," she said. "But it's not hostile." She turned back to look at him, then down at the rifle. "Maybe put that away for a minute."

"I don't like this," he said, but he shouldered the weapon.

Virgil was hunched over the computer in the tiny cave, prodding at the keys with clumsy fingers, when they walked in. He looked up when he heard their footsteps.

"You're back," he said, as Ella removed her helmet. "I wasn't sure you would be."

She scraped hair out of her eyes carefully with the thumb of her power armour. "Did you think I was going to die or give up?" she asked dryly.

"I'm not sure," he said. "I assume - you were successful?"

"I don't have the chip any more," she said. "The - people who decoded it kept it."

"That's quite all right," said the super mutant. "It's not necessary for our purposes. "I've come up with a schematic," he said. "But bear in mind that my specialty was biochemistry, not mechanical engineering."

"Are you saying this might not work?" growled Danse.

Virgil looked over at him warily. "It should work," he said. "I have as much interest in re-entering the Institute as your friend here does. I'm not going to give you something I think is faulty."

"That's not much of a reassurance," said Danse.

"That's all right," said Ella, placatingly. "This is probably our only way in, so we don't have much of a choice."

Virgil handed her a sheaf of paper, carefully rolled into a cylinder. "Once you build this," he said. "You need to tune it to the correct frequency. The code you have will let you override the signal from the Institute's relay. For a very brief moment, you'll be able to use it to enter the Institute. But you can only use it once. No second chances."

"I understand," she said, reaching out to take the paper.

He kept hold of it for just a moment longer. "And once you're in the Institute, find me that serum," he continued, his voice taking on a note of urgency. "I need you to bring it back. I'm trusting you with this."

"I will," she said. "If there's anything I still understand about this world, it's the power of a verbal contract."

He let her take the paper from his hands, finally. "Thank you," he said. "I'll be waiting."

Ella clutched the rolled paper tightly as they stepped back out into the gusts of the Glowing Sea.

"We should get back to the Prydwen," said Danse, as they walked towards the waiting vertibird. "Brotherhood engineers are the best in the Commonwealth," he said. "They'll be able to build any machine the mutant's drawn up."

Ella hadn't thought that far ahead. She turned back to look at him. "They can?" she asked. "That's - quite a weight off my shoulders."

"Well, like I was saying earlier," he said. "We're all here to support you in making this mission a success."

The vertibird rose into the air.


	16. Homebreaker

Sorry for the unreasonably long delay! It's due to a combination of real life stuff and just being kind of sick.

* * *

They walked slowly along the tangle of lanes leading up to the airport. Rain pinged off her helmet and dripped down the glass eyeslits of Ella's power amour. She fought the urge to wipe it away with clumsy metal fingers.

The Brotherhood's floodlights shone brightly through the steady rain. The sentry waved them through the fortified gates without a word.

"Evening," said Proctor Ingram, as they approached. Her dark red hair was slicked back wet against her head. "Good to see you again. Got something for me?"

"Yeah." Ella ducked into the terminal to unroll her blueprints. She handed the paper to Ingram. "I'm hoping this will mean more to you than it does to me," she said.

Ingram raised an eyebrow at her as she scanned the paper. "Radio-frequency waves," she said. "Never have guessed. This does explain the energy spikes, though." She frowned at Ella's blank look.

"So, when a signal comes in, it's trying to pick up a particular target," she explained. "In this case the synth that chip belongs to, that's trying to get back home. But instead of grabbing the target, it's going to grab you instead."

"Does - that mean we have to wait for a legitimate signal to come through before we can hop on it?" Ella asked, hesitantly.

"No, because you already tracked down a target who would use a legitimate signal," said Ingram. "The difference is-"

"Actually, never mind," Ella said hurriedly. "If you understand it, that's good enough for me."

"We're going to need a lot of stuff to build this," said Ingram. "I can send patrols out, but you're looking at what could be up to a month."

"If I help out, can you get it done sooner?" asked Ella.

"I was hoping you'd say that," said Ingram, pulling a pencil out of a section of her power armour frame. "Give me twenty minutes. I'll try and sort these components into some kind of order so I can assign them to teams."

"Sure," said Ella. "Uh, Danse mentioned I might need my power armour adjusted."

Ingram tore her eyes away from the blueprints. "Okay, hop out and let me take a look.

Ella climbed out of her power armour as Ingram walked around behind her.

"Yeah," said Ingram, leaning forward to take a closer look. "You're wearing a suit that's been set up for someone a lot bigger. Where's it bothering you, the arms? Calves?"

"I thought my calves hurt because I'd been walking more," admitted Ella. "But yes, arms too."

"Okay," said Ingram. "Easily sorted out. If you take this suit back up to the Prydwen, grab a scribe and tell them I sent you. I'll have this list written up by the time you get back down."

She followed Danse up to the roof of the airport, and climbed into the waiting vertibird.

Danse stepped out first, surveying the Prydwen with pride. Ella climbed down after him. The Prydwen was barely affected by the rain; as stable and unmoving as ever. She felt, rather than heard, the low rumbling of the ship's engines under her feet.

"She's a technological marvel," he said.

Ella smiled. "I can see that," she said, looking out at the heavy clouds hanging over the sea to the east. "How does it behave in storms?"

"We try to avoid the worst weather conditions," he said, following her gaze. "And the Prydwen is built to withstand a direct lightning strike, if necessary, in much the same way that power armour is. Landing is a last resort. We can outrun a storm in a lot of cases, but our meteorological capability isn't as advanced as it was in the days before the war. We don't have the capacity to tap into any weather satellites that may still be operational. If there are any."

"We weren't really that big on zeppelins before the war," she said. "I've never seen anything else like this."

"I don't think anything like this exists anywhere else today," he said.

"It was incredible watching it come in over the turnpike towards the city," she admitted. "Loudspeakers blaring. I didn't know at the time anything like this was possible."

"Watching her fly over from the police station was - a relief," he said. "After such a long time away."

She turned her head to look at him. His brow was furrowed; his eyes distant.

"It's been - difficult?" she asked, hesitantly.

He looked at her sharply. "Any recon squad posting is difficult," he said. "That should be expected." He paused. "But - yes. It has been a difficult mission. Come on, let's get your armour fixed up."

Ella got out of her armour at an empty power armour station, stretching out her shoulders uncomfortably. She approached a Brotherhood scribe who was crouched, scraping rust carefully off a pipe.

"Excuse me," she began. "Proctor Ingram said you might be able to help adjust my power armour."

The scribe wiped her hands on her leather apron, and stood up. "Sure thing," she said. "That can be hard to do for yourself without the right tools." She looked Ella up and down, then took a glance at the armour.

"Should be about thirty minutes," she said, and turned towards the power armour set.

"Was there anything else you wanted to do while we're here?" asked Danse.

"There are some people I should talk to," said Ella. "If you don't mind."

"Of course not," he said.

He followed her past the mess hall and into the first room on the left.

Ella held out her finger to the little grey cat perched on Proctor Quinlan's desk. The cat sniffed delicately, then rubbed its head against her hand.

"I swear you only come into my office to see Emmett," said Quinlan dryly.

"He looks like a cat I had growing up," she said, belatedly handing him a stack of folders.

"Maybe he's an ancestor," said Quinlan, taking the documents and flicking through them. "There's really an alarming lack of genetic diversity in most domesticated cats - on this side of the country, at least."

"How would they have survived when the bombs fell?" she asked. "I imagine the capital would be worse off than we were. How did anything stay alive at all?"

"Life, if you'll forgive the cliche, finds a way," said Quinlan. "Most people alive today weren't in the vaults, you know. Only a very small percentage of people made it into them."

Ella turned toward him. "What saved everyone else, then?"

Quinlan shrugged. "Living in rural areas. Being on holiday. Staying indoors a lot. Moving to less irradiated areas. Any of those and more. As long as they stayed out of lethal irradiation zones, all they had to worry about was the - wildlife. Raiders. Ghouls. Any number of FEV-corrupted animals. Most survived by accident or good fortune." He smiled wryly. "The Brotherhood of Steel, for example, was formed out of a military presence stationed at a research base."

"I'm aware," she said, smiling faintly. "I have done my background reading."

"That's more than most new recruits," said Quinlan.

"Is it?" she asked. "I was under the impression the Codex was somewhat - central."

"It is," said Danse, frowning.

"It is," agreed Quinlan. "It's just that many of our recruits don't engage as much with the source material as you seem to have. Mostly for literacy reasons, I gather. We don't get a lot of people like you."

There was something in his tone that made her hesitate. "Like me?"

"People willing to think about why they're here. Why we're here. People with some kind of critical reasoning skill."

"That's a fairly grim assessment of the Brotherhood's recruitment capabilities," she said lightly.

Quinlan's eyes flicked towards Danse for a second, then back to her. He gave her a tight smile. "The perils of trying to muster an army in an environment with very few educational facilities, I fear," he said. "If we get them young enough we can do a good enough job ourselves, but unfortunately our rather high casualty rate means we have to recruit from outside sources."

Ella tilted her head. "Would you choose to do things differently?"

Quinlan held up his hands, eyes wide. "I would not presume to comment on the current direction of the Brotherhood as set by Elder Maxson," he said. "Have you perhaps finished dropping off your materials? It has been delightful to see you."

Ella backed out of the room hurriedly.

"Was I unintentionally encouraging some kind of sedition?" she asked Danse as they walked back through the mess hall. "That wasn't what I was trying to do."

"You may not be sufficiently used to the military hierarchy," said Danse. "I don't personally have a problem with the question you asked, but I can see how it could have been interpreted differently."

She turned her head towards him. "I didn't mean to ask anything that could lead to that," she said, quietly. "I - maybe you're right, I don't understand it here."

He stopped.

She turned back to face him. "Am I doing something wrong? I - I feel like I-"

"You're not doing anything wrong," he said firmly. "I will of course inform you if you need to make any adjustments to your behaviour."

She looked at him for a moment longer, then sighed. "All right," she said. "Let's go upstairs."

They'd barely cleared the top step before a chorus of voices welcomed them.

"It's Danse!"

The squires clustered around him. "Danse!" one of them chirped. "I got to go on a vertibird!"

"I came first in target practice!" squealed another.

Ella stepped back to give them room, grinning.

"That's enough," Danse said, sternly. "You're on duty. Behave like it."

"Yes sir!" They snapped to attention.  
Ella tried to hide a smile. "They love you," she said, grinning as they returned to their places.

He frowned. "I don't like having them here," he said. "It exposes them to a lot of risk. But it's Elder Maxson's decision."

"What's the problem?" she asked, as they climbed the stairs to the second level of the ship. "Is it actually dangerous?"

"The Prydwen is an active warship," he said. "And the Commonwealth is, for all intents and purposes, an unknown quantity. A mobile base like this has a number of benefits. But a number of drawbacks as well."

"Is this the whole Brotherhood on this ship?" she asked.

"Our entire chapter," he said. "Minus up to thirty percent at any time for research and security patrols, and operational staff on the ground. We maintain a presence in the Capital Wasteland as well, but it's primarily composed of noncombatants."

"So the entire leadership structure is on this ship?" she asked.

Danse frowned. "Most of it," he said. "It's - a risk. But - most of the time you don't think about it. You do get used to sleeping comfortably under massive tanks of highly flammable gas."

She grinned uncertainly. "Is that a joke?" she asked. "I can't tell."

"A joke?" he asked, puzzled. "No. You really do get used to it."

"Of course," she said, trying to stifle her smile. "That's, uh, reassuring." She looked up. Huge metal spheres were held in place by steel scaffolding under the roof of the ship. "What have you got in there, hydrogen? I think helium is less - flammable. Probably commensurately harder to find, though."

"It's hard enough to find any amount of gas in the amounts needed to run the ship," he said.

"I imagine it would be," she said, craning her neck to look upwards. "But if those go up, we're all dead, right?"

"Well - I wouldn't like to be on board if it happens," said Danse. "But we have procedures in place to keep the risk to a minimum."

They made their way to the end of the catwalk. Ella pushed open the door to the forecastle and walked out into the wind.

"We're lucky the tower's still standing," said Danse. "The planes have been blown all over the airport."

"The tower was built to last a couple hundred years," she murmured, wrapping her hands around the slippery guard rail. "Airplanes are built to last thirty years at best. All the engineering that went into those buildings isn't going to just give up in the face of a nuclear blast. It wouldn't take a direct hit, of course, but - we built things to last." She looked out at the Boston city skyline; Mass Fusion and Trinity Towers standing out high above the other buildings.

"And I guess that's what they did," she said. "For all it was worth. _Look upon my works, ye mighty._ I can't remember who wrote that anymore. I want to say Kipling, but I think it might have been Shelley." She turned back to Danse. "I'm sorry, I'm being - ridiculous."

"It's - fine," he said, gently. "I can't imagine how difficult it must be."

"It takes my breath away," she said. "Every time. Like getting punched in the stomach."

"I've seen photographs," he said. "Of the Capital Wasteland, and the Commonwealth, before the war. More of the former."

"I'm glad," she said quietly. "That there's still some evidence of how things used to be. Something that proves it wasn't always like this." She turned. "Let's go back inside," she said. "See how my armour is doing."


	17. I Can't Believe It's All Over

Ella could hear the echoes of the vault door clanging shut through the cave behind her, muted in the still afternoon air.

One of the traders, lean and wiry - Cricket? - was hunched over a concrete-block cooking fire outside, among the rusting vehicles and the portable Vault-Tec cabins. She lifted her hand in greeting as they emerged from the darkness. Ella raised a hand automatically in response.

The sunlight sparkling off the water in the reservoir in front of her was almost painfully bright. She took an unsteady step down the dirt path back towards the city, but her foot skidded on a loose stone. Her power armour's knees locked as she began to slide, and she threw out her arms to try to regain her balance. She skidded to a halt, heart pounding.

Her power armour was suddenly stifling, the air circulating through the ventilation system tepid and thick. She wrenched herself out of her suit into the sunshine, trying to ignore the dull ache in her limbs as she moved. She turned to look at the damaged knee of the suit, the servomotor dangling and the reinforced rubber lining torn almost completely off. The back of her leg throbbed in sympathy as she looked at it, although the jagged bite a molerat had taken out of it had now been healed, the skin now smooth and unblemished.

She stumbled, putting a hand on the rock wall beside her. She leaned her head on it, closing her eyes. Her heartbeat thumped against the inside of her skull.

"You compromised your own health by giving the cure to that boy," said Danse.

"He's just a kid," murmured Ella. "Christ." A wave of dizziness washed over her.

"You need to be more careful if this mission is going to succeed," he continued.

She turned her head to look at him, still leaning against the wall. Her eyes felt too hot. "I couldn't just - take it for myself," she said. "It would have entirely defeated the point of going in there in the first place. We'd just be back where we started. Worse, because then we'd definitely know there wasn't anything we could do to help."

"That doesn't mean you have to put yourself at risk," he said. "You're the priority here."

"They said it was worse because of his age. And probably his immune system, from growing up in the vault." Her words sounded dull and heavy in her own ears.

"Your immune system was calibrated for a set of diseases that were last relevant two hundred years ago," he said. "It's not any better. What if this - illness - gets worse?"

"It should not." The robot following them spoke up again. They both turned to look at it, hovering a short way behind them. Its round white chassis gleamed in the sun, and it's three optical sensors were in almost constant motion. "You will note the molerats did not die of the strain they were infected with," it said. "The virus was designed to be stable in adult life forms."

Ella frowned at the robot's feminine French accent, ludicrously out of place. "Life forms," she repeated under her breath.

Danse turned back to her. "You should come back to the Prydwen," he said. "Get Knight-Captain Cade to take a look at you."

She turned back to him. "It just feels like the flu," she said. "It's not - you know, it's not bad."

"Out here, any disadvantage could be the one that kills you." His dark eyes were stern; his brows heavy.

She sighed, looking away. "What about you?" she asked. "Are you feeling okay? Did you get bitten or anything?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Are you ingesting adequate nutrition?" asked Curie, startling Ella again. "I estimate you weigh just under 80% of your optimal body mass index."

"I can't eat the food out here, Curie," Ella complained, turning to face the robot. The motion sent a wave of dizziness through her, and she gripped hard onto her power armour. "It's disgusting. Not real food at all. A ridiculous French stereotype like you has to appreciate that, right?"

"You think I am a-" the robot hesitated. "A stereotype? Doctor Collins told me I was based on a woman he once knew."

"Really?" asked Ella. "You've got the standard Miss Nanny voice module. Though - clearly your programming is something that's not factory spec." Speaking was an effort. Her mouth was dry, her words beginning to slur. "We almost bought one before - before the baby was born, instead of the Mr Handy, but Nate made this filthy joke, and-" She was suddenly overcome with a memory so vivid it bordered on a hallucination; sitting on her couch, one leg pulled up under her, watching Nate was leaning his elbows on the kitchen bench, one eyebrow raised.

Then, suddenly, Ella was back, hand slipping off the rock wall, her knees buckling under her. Danse leaped forward to grab hold of her before she hit the ground, the huge metal hands of his power armour hands deft and gentle.

"Sorry," she said. "S-sorry. I thought I - was sitting down."

"We need to get you back to the Prydwen as soon as possible." His tone left no room for argument.

"Yeah," she said, closing her eyes as she leant against him. "Okay. That was - quite bad."

He half-carried her to the bench by the cooking station. She slumped down on the wooden seat, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes to block out the light.

"I'm going to signal a vertibird," he said. "I'll be right back."

"I don't think I got anything that's going to help what you've got," said Cricket. "Unless you're after a more permanent solution to your troubles."

"Don't tempt me," Ella mumbled, looking up at her through splayed fingers. Cricket's red-lined eyes were dubious, and she took a half-step away as Ella met her gaze.

"You don't look real good, lady," Cricket said.

"No kidding," mumbled Ella.

Curie hovered at the edge of Ella's vision. "The effects should get less serious over time."

"This cure you had," Ella said, turning to look at Curie. "You said the - uh, components had all been used up?"

"Almost," Curie said. "The organic compounds have expired and are no longer guaranteed effective or even the correct concentration. Transpiration loss across two centuries is unavoidable even in the most well-controlled environment."

Ella closed her eyes for a moment. "What about if we found more supplies?" she asked weakly. "Could you make more?"

"That would be - difficult," the robot said. "The compounds used in our research are not common. I anticipate our chances of finding them in the Commonwealth at 0.02%."

"There are pretty advanced laboratories out here," Ella said. "And hospitals. Do you know much about Boston?"

"Do you know much about chemical synthesis?" The robot's tone was polite, but was so pointed Ella had to laugh incredulously.

"No," she said.

"Then I do not see how we will accomplish your goal."

The robot's tone set her teeth on edge, and the smile faded from her face. She sat up straighter. "Well, okay. This disease is spread through fluids, right?" she asked, sharply. "It's not exactly hygienic out here. If I go to a doctor to get patched up or my rads flushed, there's a risk that anyone the doctor treats after me gets the same thing. Or I get bitten by a mosquito. Or if - if I get bitten by another molerat and don't manage to kill it immediately, it gets infected, takes the disease back to its nest, infects the rest of its pack, has infected children, spreads across the Commonwealth - if this virus is so potent it can kill a child within days, it could wipe out a generation of children, and we could do _nothing_ about it. This is a huge potential public health problem. I'm surprised your programming doesn't allow you to grasp the scope of the problem, to be frank."

The robot hovered in the air in front of her, silent.

"How fast do molerats reproduce?" she demanded. "What are their migration patterns? Do you think it's uncommon for a kid to get bitten by a molerat out here? Can the virus jump species to dogs, or bears, or anything else out here? Can ghouls get it? Do I have to be careful who has contact with my blood if I'm injured? Ignoring this is _not_ an option." Ella wanted to grab the robot by its spindly little arms and shake it. "It's not just _me_ ," she said, balling her hands into fists. "I'm not the only one potentially affected by this."

Just as quickly as it had arrived, the incandescence of her rage faded, leaving her exhausted. She closed her eyes, dropping her head back into her hands.

"I understand the - magnitude of the situation you have outlined," said Curie, quietly. "Give me some time to work on some predictive models. I will - I will find a solution."

"Alright," she said. "Look, there's a little town just north of Concord. Do you know where that is? I can meet you there later. After we get back."

"Yes," said Curie. "I have map records of pre-war Boston among my reference materials."

She let out a long breath. "Okay," she said. "Great."

Ella looked up as she heard Danse's footsteps approach.

"The vertibird is on its way," he said. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah," she said. "I think so. I don't know about walking in the power armour, though."

"I'll get a recruit to pick it up," he said.

They made their way slowly to a clear space by the water's edge, and watched the vertibird fly towards them, low over the horizon.

"They sold us," she said, quietly.

Danse turned towards her. "Who - sold us?"

"No, I mean - me. All of us before the war. The government sold us." She stared out over the decaying city skyline. "And I trusted them."

She turned to Danse. "That sounds naive," she said. "I don't mean I trusted them to do the right thing for our veterans, or spend our tax dollars wisely, but I never thought they'd sell us to - to be experiments." The words caught in her throat.

"I can't understand a government that would do that to its citizens," said Danse.

"I can't either," she said, haltingly. "I don't understand why they did it. Who was collecting it. What were they going to do with all the results. What were we _for_?"

"The level of corruption is unimaginable," he said. He turned to look down at her. "For what it's worth - I'm sorry."

"I guess it doesn't matter now," she said, quietly.

They stood back, shielding their eyes from the dust the vertibird kicked up as it came in to land.

"Are you going to be all right on the ride back to the Prydwen?" he asked.

"I probably won't be so great on the fixed minigun," she said, with a weak smile. "Should be able to stay in a seat, though."

"Of course," said Danse, as they walked towards the vertibird. "After you."


End file.
